 | IV. Inklings of adventure |  |
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,
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 recognized 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 car, 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,
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!
| IV. Inklings of adventure | |