The Eye of Zeitoon | Page 8

his foot should be a judge of men! I have judged you fit to be invited! Now you judge me--the Eye of Zeitoon!"
"What is your real name?"
"I have none--or many, which is the same thing! I did not ask your names; they are your own affair!"
He stood with his hand on the door, not irresolute, but taking one last look at us and our belongings.
"I wish you comfortable sleep, and long lives, effendim!" he said then, and swung himself out, closing the door behind him with an air of having honored us, not we him particularly. And after he had gone we were not at all sure that summary of the situation was not right.
We lay awake on our cots until long after midnight, hazarding guesses about him. Whatever else he had done he had thoroughly aroused our curiosity.
"If you want my opinion that's all he was after anyway!" said Will, dropping his last cigarette-end on the floor and flattening it with his slipper.
"Cut the cackle, and let's sleep!"
We fell asleep at last amid the noise of wild carousing; for the proprietor of the Yeni Khan, although a Turk, and therefore himself presumably abstemious, was not above dispensing at a price mastika that the Greeks get drunk on, and the viler raki, with which Georgians, Circassians, Albanians, and even the less religious Turks woo imagination or forgetfulness.
There was knife-fighting as well as carousal before dawn, to judge by the cat-and-dog-fight swearing in and out among the camel pickets and the wheels of arabas. But that was the business of the men who fought, and no one interfered.

Chapter Two
"How did sunshine get into the garden? By whose leave came the wind?"
A TIME AND TIMES AND HALF A TIME
When Cydnus bore the Taurus snows To sweeten Cleopatra's keels, And rippled in the breeze that sings >From Kara Dagh, where leafy wings Of flowers fall and gloaming steals The colors of the blowing rose, Old were the wharves and woods and ways-- Older the tale of steel and fire, Involved intrigue, envenomed plan, Man marketing his brother man By dread duress to glut desire. No peace was in those olden days. Hope like the gorgeous rose sun-warmed Blossomed and blew away and died, Till gentleness had ceased to be And Tarsus knew no chivalry Could live an hour by Cydnus' side Where all the heirs of evil swarmed. And yet--with every swelling spring Each pollen-scented zephyr's breath Repeats the patient news to ears Made dull by dreams of loveless years, "It is of life, and not of death That ye shall hear the Cydnus sing!"
We awoke amid sounds unexplainable. Most of the Moslems had finished their noisy ritual ablutions, and at dawn we had been dimly conscious of the strings of camels, mules and donkeys jingling out under the arch beneath us. Yet there was a great din from the courtyard of wild hoofs thumping on the dung, and of scurrying feet as if a mile-long caravan were practising formations.
So we went out to yawn, and remained, oblivious of everything but the cause of all the noise, we leaning with elbows on the wooden rail, and she laughing up at us at intervals.
The six Zingarri, or gipsies, had pitched their tent in the very middle of the yard, ambitious above all other considerations to keep away from walls. It was a big, low, black affair supported on short poles, and subdivided by them into several compartments. One could see unshapely bulges where women did the housekeeping within.
But the woman who held us spell-bound cared nothing for Turkish custom --a girl not more than seventeen years old at the boldest guess. She was breaking a gray stallion in the yard, sitting the frenzied beast without a saddle and doing whatever she liked with him, except that his heels made free of the air, and he went from point to point whichever end up best pleased his fancy.
Travelers make an early start in Asia Minor, but the yard was by no means empty yet; some folk were still waiting on the doubtful weather. Her own people kept to the tent. Whoever else had business in the yard made common cause and cursed the girl for making the disturbance, frightening camels, horses, asses and themselves. And she ignored them all, unless it was on purpose that she brought her stallion's heels too close for safety to the most abusive.
It was only for us two that she had any kind of friendly interest; she kept looking up at us and laughing as she caught our eyes, bringing her mount uprearing just beneath us several times. She was pretty as the peep o' morning, with long, black wavy hair all loose about her shoulders, and as light on the horse as the foam he tossed about, although master