The Eye of Zeitoon Part 10

For the moment the girl on the gray stallion had ridden away from Will and was giving regal orders to the mob of women and shrill children, who obeyed her as if well used to it. Gregor Jhaere and his men stood staring at us, Gregor shaking his head as if our letting the Turks go free had been a bad stroke of policy.

"Aren't you afraid to travel with all that mob of women and cattle?" asked Monty. "We've heard of robbers on the road."

"We are the robbers, effendi!" said Gregor with an air of modesty. The others smirked, but he seemed disinclined to over-insist on the gulf between us.

"Hear him!" growled Rustum Khan. "A thief, who boasts of thieving in the presence of sahibs! So is corruption, stinking in the sun!"

He added something in another language that the gipsies understood, for Gregor started as if stung and swore at him, and Maga Jhaere left her women-folk to ride alongside and glare into his eyes. They were enemies, those two, from that hour forward. He, once Hindu, now Moslem, had no admiration whatever to begin with for unveiled women. And, since the gipsy claims to come from India and may therefore be justly judged by Indian standards, and has no caste, but is beneath the very lees of caste, he loathed all gipsies with the prejudice peculiar to men who have deserted caste in theory and in self-protection claim themselves above it. It was a case of height despising deep in either instance, she as sure of her superiority as he of his.

There might have been immediate trouble if Monty had not taken his new, restless, fresh horse by the mane and swung into the saddle.

"Forward, Rustum Khan!" he ordered. "Ride ahead and let those keen eyes of yours keep us out of traps!"

The Rajput obeyed, but as he pa.s.sed Will he checked his mare a moment, and waiting until Will's blue eyes met his he raised a warning finger.

"Kubadar, sahib!"

Then he rode on, like a man who has done his duty.

"What the devil does he mean?" demanded Will.

"Kubadar means, 'Take care'!" said Monty. "Come on, what are we waiting for?"

That was the beginning, too, of Will's feud with the Rajput, neither so remorseless nor so sudden as the woman's, because he had a different code to guide him and also had to convince himself that a quarrel with a man of color was compatible with Yankee dignity. We could have wished them all three either friends, or else a thousand miles apart two hundred times before the journey ended.

As we rode forward with even our Zeitoonli mounted now on strong mules, Maga Jhaere sat her stallion beside Will with an air of owning him. She was likely a safer friend than enemy, and we did nothing to interfere. Monty pressed forward. Fred and I fell to the rear.

"Haide!"* shouted Gregor Jhaere, and all the motley swarm of women and children caught themselves mounts-some already loaded with the gipsy baggage, some with saddles, some without, some with gra.s.s halters for bridles. In another minute Fred and I were riding surrounded by a smelly swarm of them, he with big fingers already on the keys of his beloved concertina, but I less enamored than he of the company.

--------- * Haide!-Turkish, "Come on!" ---------

Women and children, loaded, loose and led horses were all mixed together in unsortable confusion, the two oldest hags in the world trusting themselves on sorry, lame nags between Fred and me as if proximity to us would solve the very riddle of the gipsy race. And last of all came a pack of great scrawny dogs that bayed behind us hungrily, following for an hour until hope of plunder vanished.

"That little she-devil who has taken a fancy to Will," said Fred with a grin, "is capable of more atrocities than all the Turks between here and Stamboul! She looks to me like Santanita, Cleopatra, Salome, Caesar's wife, and all the Borgia ladies rolled in one. There's something added, though, that they lacked."

"Youth," said I. "Beauty. Athletic grace. Sinuous charm."

"No, probably they all had all those."

"Then horsemans.h.i.+p."

"Perhaps. Didn't Cleopatra ride?"

"Then what?" said I, puzzled.

"Indiscretion!" he answered, jerking loose the catch of his infernal instrument.

"Don't be afraid, old ladies," he said, glancing at the harridans between us. "I'm only going to sing!"

He makes up nearly all of his songs, and some of them, although irreverent, are not without peculiar merit; but that was one of his worst ones.

The preachers prate of fallen man And choirs repeat the chant, While unco' guid with unction urge Repression of the joys that surge, And jail for those who can't.

The poor deluded duds forget That something drew the sting When Adam tiptoed to his fall, And made it hardly hurt at all.

Of Mother Eve I sing!

CHORUS Oh, Mother Eve, dear Mother Eve, The generations come and go, But daughter Eve's as live as you Were back in Eden years ago!

Oh, h.e.l.l's not h.e.l.l with Eve to tell Again the ancient tale, But Eden's gra.s.sy ways and bowers Deprived of Eve to ease the hours Would very soon grow stale!

Red cherry lips that leap to laugh, And chic and flick and flair Can make black white for any one- The task of Sisyphus good fun!

So what should Adam care!

CHORUS Oh, daughter Eve, dear daughter Eve, The tribulations go and come, But no adventure's ever tame With you to make surprises hum!

Chapter Five "Effendi, that is the heart of Armenia burning."

THE PATTERAN

(I)

Aye-yee-I see-a cloud afloat in air af amethyst I know its racing shadow falls on banks of gold Where rain-rejoicing gravel warms the feeding roots And smells more wonderful than wine.

I know the shoots of myrtle and of asphodel now stir the mould Where wee cool noses sniff the early mist.

Aye-yee-the sparkle of the little springs I see That tinkle as they hunt the thirsty rill.

I know the cobwebs glitter with the jeweled dew.

I see a fleck of brown-it was a skylark flew To scatter bursting music, and the world is still To listen. Ah, my heart is bursting too-Aye-yee!

Chorus: (It begins with a swinging crash, and fades away.) Aye-yee, aye-yah-the kites see far (But also to the foxes views unfold)- No hour alike, no places twice the same, Nor any track to show where morning came, Nor any footprint in the moistened mould To tell who covered up the morning star.

Aye-yee-aye-yah!

(2) Aye-yee-I see-new rushes crowding upwards in the mere Where, gold and white, the wild duck preens himself Safe hidden till the sun-drawn, lingering mists melt.

I know the secret den where bruin dwelt.

I see him now sun-basking on a shelf Of windy rock. He looks down on the deer, Who flit like flowing light from rock to tree And stand with ears alert before they drink.

I know a pool of purple rimmed with white Where wild-fowl, warming for the morning flight, Wait cl.u.s.tering and crying on the brink.

And I know hillsides where the partridge breeds. Aye-yee!

Chorus: Aye-yee, aye-yah-the kites see far (But also to the owls the visions change)- No dawn is like the next, and nothing sings Of sameness-very hours have wings And leave no word of whose hand touched the range Of Kara Dagh with opal and with cinnabar.

Aye-yee, aye-yah!

(3) Aye-yee-I see-new distances beyond a blue horizon flung.

I laugh, because the people under roofs believe That last year's ways are this!

No roads are old! New gra.s.s has grown!

All pools and rivers hold New water!

And the feathered singers weave New nests, forgetting where the old ones hung!

Aye-yah-the muddy highway sticks and clings, But I see in the open pastures new Unknown to busne* in the houses pent!

I hear the new, warm raindrops drumming on the tent, I feel already on my feet delicious dew, I see the trail outflung! And oh, my heart has wings!

Chorus: Aye-yee, aye-yah-the kites see far (But also on the road the visions pa.s.s)- The universe reflected in a wayside pool, A tinkling symphony where seeping waters drool, The dance, more gay than laughter, of the wind-swept gra.s.s- Oh, onward! On to where the visions are!

Aye-yee-aye-yah!

----------- * Busne-Gipsy word-Gentile, or non-gipsy. -----------

Russia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Bohemia, Persia, Armenia were all one hunting-ground to the troupe we rode with. Even the children seemed to have a smattering of most of the tongues men speak in those intriguing lands. Will and the girl beside him conversed in German, but the old hag nearest me would not confess acquaintance with any language I knew. Again and again I tried her, but she always shook her head.

Fred, with his ready gift of tongues, attempted conversation with ten or a dozen of them, but whichever language he used in turn appeared to be the only one which that particular individual did not know. All he got in reply was grins, and awkward silence, and shrugs of the shoulders in Gregor's direction, implying that the head of the firm did the talking with strangers. But Gregor rode alone with Monty, out of ear-shot.

Maga (for so they all called her) flirted with Will outrageously, if that is flirting that proclaims conquest from the start, and sets flas.h.i.+ng white teeth in defiance of all intruders. Even the little children had hidden weapons, but Maga was better armed than any one, and she thrust the new mother-o-pearl-plated acquisition in the face of one of the men who dared drive his horse between hers and Will's. That not serving more than to amuse him, she slapped him three times back-handed across the face, and thrusting the pistol back into her bosom, drew a knife. He seemed in no doubt of her willingness to use the steel, and backed his horse away, followed by language from her like forked lightning that disturbed him more than the threatening weapon. Gipsies are great believers in the efficiency of a curse.

Nothing could be further from the mark than to say that Will tried to take advantage of Maga's youth and savagery. Fred and I had shared a dozen lively adventures with him without more than beginning yet to plumb the depths of his respect for Woman. Only an American in all the world knows how to meet Young Woman eye to eye with totally unpatronizing frankness, and he was without guile in the matter. But not so she. We did not know whether or not she was Gregor Jhaere's daughter; whether or not she was truly the gipsy that she hardly seemed. But she was certainly daughter of the Near East that does not understand a state of peace between the s.e.xes. There was nothing lawful in her att.i.tude, nor as much as the suspicion that Will might be merely chivalrous.

"America's due for s.e.x-enlightenment!" said I.