University of Virginia Library

4. IV.

The suridji had given us our spiced coffee in the
small china cups and filagree holders, and we sat discussing,
to the great annoyance of the storks over our
heads, whether we should loiter another day at Sardis,
or eat melons at noon at Casabar on our way to Constantinople.
To the very great surprise of the Dutchman,
who wished to stay to finish his drawings, Job and
myself voted for remaining — a view of the subject which
was in direct contradiction to our vote of the preceding
evening. The Englishman, who was always in a hurry,
flew into a passion, and went off with the phlegmatic
suridji to look after his horse; and having disposed
of our Smyrniote, by seeing a caravan (which
was not to be seen) coming southward from Mount
Tmolus, I and my monster started for the encampment
of the gipsies.

As we rounded the battered wall of the Christian
church, a woman stepped out from the shadow; through
a tattered dress, and under a turban of soiled cotton set
far over her forehead, and throwing a deep shadow into
her eyes, I recognised at once the gipsy woman whom
we had seen sitting by the cradle.

“Buon giorno, signori,” she said, making a kind of
salaam, and relieving me at once by the Italian salutation
of my fears of being unintelligible.

Job gave her the good-morning, but she looked at
him with a very unsatisfactory glance, and coming
close to my ear, she wished me to speak to her out of
the hearing of “il mio domestico!”

“Amico piu tosto!” I added immediately with a consideration
for Job's feelings, which, I must do myself
the justice to say, I always manifested, except in very
elegant society. I gave myself the greater credit in

this case, as, in my impatience to know the nature of
the gipsy's communication, I might be excused for
caring little at the moment whether my friend was
taken for a gentleman or a gentleman's gentleman.

The gipsy looked vexed at her mistake, and with a
half-apologetic inclination to Job, she drew me into
the shade of the ruin, and perused my face with great
earnestness. “The same to yourself,” thought I, as
I gave back her glance, and searched for her meaning
in two as liquid and loving eyes as ever looked out of
the gates of the Prophet's paradise for the coming of
a young believer. It was a face that had been divine,
and in the hands of a lady of fashion would have still
made a bello rifacimento.

“Inglese?” she said at last.

“No, madre — Americano.”

She looked disappointed.

“And where are you going, filio mio?”

“To Stamboul.”

“Benissimo!” she answered, and her face brightened.
“Do you want a servant?”

“Unless it is yourself, no!”

“It is my son.”

It was on my lips to ask if he was like her daughter,
but an air of uneasiness and mystery in her manner put
me on the reserve, and I kept my knowledge to myself.
She persevered in her suit, and at last the truth came
out, that her boy was bound on an errand to Constantinople,
and she wished safe conduct for him. The
rest of the troop, she said, were at Smyrna, and she
was left in care of the tents with the boy and an infant
child. As she did not mention the girl, who, from the
resemblance, was evidently her daughter — I thought it
unwise to allude to our discovery: and promising that,
if the boy was mounted, every possible care should be
taken of him, I told her the hour on the following
morning when we should be in the saddle, and rid myself
of her with the intention of stealing a march on
the camp.

I took rather a circuitous route, but the gipsy was
there before me, and apparently alone. She had sent
the boy to the plains for a horse, and though I presumed
that the loveliest creature in Asia was concealed
in one or the other of those small tents, the curtains
were closely tied, and I could find no apology for intruding
either my eyes or my inquiries. The handsome
Zingara, too, began to look rather becomingly
fiere; and as I had left Job behind, and was always
naturally afraid of a woman, I reluctantly felt myself
under the necessity of comprehending her last injunction,
and with a promise that the boy should join us
before we reached the foot of Mount Sypilus, she fairly
bowed me off the premises. I could have forsworn
my complexion and studied palmistry for a gipsy, had
the devil then tempted me!