The Eye of Zeitoon

by Talbot Mundy

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

  THE PATTERAN

  (I)

  Aye-yee--I see--a cloud afloat in air af amethystI know its racing shadow falls on banks of goldWhere rain-rejoicing gravel warms the feeding rootsAnd smells more wonderful than wine.I know the shoots of myrtle and of asphodel now stir the mouldWhere wee cool noses sniff the early mist.Aye-yee--the sparkle of the little springs I seeThat 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 flewTo scatter bursting music, and the world is stillTo 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 mouldTo tell who covered up the morning star. Aye-yee--aye-yah!

  (2)Aye-yee--I see--new rushes crowding upwards in the mereWhere, gold and white, the wild duck preens himselfSafe hidden till the sun-drawn, lingering mists melt.I know the secret den where bruin dwelt.I see him now sun-basking on a shelfOf windy rock. He looks down on the deer,Who flit like flowing light from rock to treeAnd stand with ears alert before they drink.I know a pool of purple rimmed with whiteWhere wild-fowl, warming for the morning flight,Wait clustering 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 singsOf sameness--very hours have wingsAnd leave no word of whose hand touched the rangeOf 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 believeThat last year's ways are this!No roads are old! New grass has grown!All pools and rivers hold New water!And the feathered singers weaveNew nests, forgetting where the old ones hung!Aye-yah--the muddy highway sticks and clings,But I see in the open pastures newUnknown 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 pass)--The universe reflected in a wayside pool,A tinkling symphony where seeping waters drool,The dance, more gay than laughter, of the wind-swept grass--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 onehunting-ground to the troupe we rode with. Even the children seemedto have a smattering of most of the tongues men speak in those intriguinglands. Will and the girl beside him conversed in German, but theold hag nearest me would not confess acquaintance with any languageI knew. Again and again I tried her, but she always shook her head.

  Fred, with his ready gift of tongues, attempted conversation withten or a dozen of them, but whichever language he used in turn appearedto be the only one which that particular individual did not know.All he got in reply was grins, and awkward silence, and shrugs ofthe shoulders in Gregor's direction, implying that the head of thefirm did the talking with strangers. But Gregor rode alone withMonty, 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 setsflashing white teeth in defiance of all intruders. Even the littlechildren had hidden weapons, but Maga was better armed than any one,and she thrust the new mother-o-pearl-plated acquisition in the faceof 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 timesback-handed across the face, and thrusting the pistol back into herbosom, drew a knife. He seemed in no doubt of her willingness touse the steel, and backed his horse away, followed by language fromher like forked lightning that disturbed him more than the threateningweapon. Gipsies are great believers in the efficiency of a curse.

  Nothing could be further from the mark than to say that Will triedto take advantage of Maga's youth and savagery. Fred and I had shareda dozen lively adventures with him without more than beginning yetto plumb the depths of his respect for Woman. Only an American inall the world knows how to meet Young Woman eye to eye with totallyunpatronizing frankness, and he was without guile in the matter.But not so she. We did not know whether or not she was Gregor Jhaere'sdaughter; whether or not she was truly the gipsy that she hardlyseemed. But she was certainly daughter of the Near East that doesnot understand a state of peace between the sexes. There was nothinglawful in her attitude, nor as much as the suspicion that Will mightbe merely chivalrous.

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

  "Warn him if you like," Fred laughed, "and then steer clear! OurAmerica is proud besides imprudent!"

  Fred off-shouldered all responsibility and forestalled anxiety onany one's account by playing tunes, stampeding the whole cavalcademore than once because the horses were unused to his clanging concertina,but producing such high spirits that it became a joke to have todismount in the mud and replace the load on some mule who had expressedenjoyment of the tune by rolling in slime, or by trying to kick cloudsout of the sky.

  And strangely enough he brought about the very last thing he intendedwith his music--stopped the flirtation's immediate progress. Magaseemed to take to Fred's unchastened harmony with all the wildnessthat possessed her. Some chord he struck, or likelier, some abandonedsuccession of them touched off her magazine of poetry. And so she sang.

  The only infinitely gorgeous songs I ever listened to were Maga's.Almighty God, who made them, only really knows what country the gipsiesoriginally came from, but there is not a land that has not felt theirfeet, nor a sorrow they have not witnessed. Away back in the wombof time there was planted in them a rare gift of seeing what therest of us can only sometimes hear, and of hearing what only veryfew from the world that lives in houses can do more than vaguelyfeel when at the peak of high emotion. The gipsies do not understandwhat they see, and hear, and feel; but they are aware of infinitiestoo intimate for ordinary speech. And it was given to Maga to singof all that, with a voice tuned like a waterfall's for open sky,and trees, and distances--not very loud, but far-carrying, and flattenedin quarter-tones where it touched the infinite.

  Fred very soon ceased from braying with his bellowed instrument.Her songs were too wild for accompaniment--interminable stanzas ofunequal length, with a refrain at the end of each that rose througha thousand emotions to a crash of ecstasy, and then died away todreaminess, coming to an end on an unfinished rising scale.

  All the gipsies and our Zeitoonli and Rustum Khan's lean servantjoined in the refrains, so that we trotted along under the snow-tippedfangs of the Kara Dagh oblivious of the passage of time, but verykeenly conscious of touch with a realm of life whose existence hithertowe had only vaguely guessed at.

  The animals refused to weary while that singing testified of tirelessharmonies, as fresh yet as on the day when the worlds were born.We rattled forward, on and upward, as if the panorama were unrollingand we were the static point, getting out of nobody's way for thebest reason in the world--that everybody hid at first sight or soundof us, except when we passed near villages, and then the greatfierce-fanged curs chased and bayed behind us in short-winded fury.

  "The dogs bark," quoted Fred serenely, "but the caravan moves on!"

  An hour before dark we swung round a long irregular spur of the hillsthat made a wide bend in the road, and halted at a lonely kahveh--awind-swept ruin of a place, the wall of whose upper story waspatched with ancient sacking, but whose owner came out and smiledso warmly on us that we overlooked the inhospitable frown of hisunplastered walls, hoping that his smile and the profundity of hissalaams might prove prophetic of comfort and cleanliness within.Vain hope!
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br />   Maga left Will's side then, for there was iron-embedded custom tobe observed about this matter of entering a road-house. In thatland superstition governs just as fiercely as the rest those whomake mock of the rule-of-rod religions, and there is no man or womanfree to behave as he or she sees fit. Every one drew aside fromMonty, and he strode in alone through the split-and-mended door,we following next, and the gipsies with their animals clattered noisilybehind us. The women entered last, behind the last loaded mule,and Maga the very last of all, because she was the most beautiful,and beauty might bring in the devil with it only that the devil istoo proud to dawdle behind the old hags and the horses.

  We found ourselves in an oblong room, with stalls and a sort of poundfor animals at one end and an enormous raised stone fireplace atthe other. Wooden platforms for the use of guests faced each otherdown the two long sides, and the only promise of better than usualcomfort lay in the piles of firewood waiting for whoever felt richand generous enough to foot the bill for a quantity.

  But an agreeable surprise made us feel at home before ever the fireleaped up to warm the creases out of saddle-weary limbs. We hadgiven up thinking of Kagig, not that we despaired of him, but thegipsies, and especially Maga, had replaced his romantic interestfor the moment with their own. Now all the man's own exciting claimon the imagination returned in full flood, as he arose leisurelyfrom a pile of skins and blankets near the hearth to greet Monty,and shouted with the manner of a chieftain for fuel to be piled oninstantly--"For a great man comes!" he announced to the rafters.And the kahveh servants, seven sons of the owner of the place, wereswift and abject in the matter of obeisance. They were Turks. AllTurks are demonstrative in adoration of whoever is reputed great.Monty ignored them, and Kagig came down the length of the room tooffer him a hand on terms of blunt equality.

  "Lord Montdidier," he said, mispronouncing the word astonishingly,"this is the furthest limit of my kingdom yet. Kindly be welcome!"

  "Your kingdom?" said Monty, shaking hands, but not quite acceptingthe position of blood-equal. He was bigger and better looking thanKagig, and there was no mistaking which was the abler man, even atthat first comparison, with Kagig intentionally making the most ofa dramatic situation.

  Kagig laughed, not the least nervously.

  "Mirza," he said in Persian, "duzd ne giriftah padshah ast!" (Prince,the uncaught thief is king.)

  He was wearing a kalpak--the head-gear of the cossack, which wouldmake a high priest look outlawed, and a shaggy goat-skin coat thathad seen more than one campaign. Unmistakably the garment had beenslit by bullets, and repaired by fingers more enthusiastic than adept.There was a pride of poverty about him that did not gibe well withhis boast of being a robber.

  "That's the first gink we've met in this land who didn't claim tobe something better than he looked!" Will whispered.

  "Hopeless, I suppose!" Fred answered. "Never mind. I like the man."

  It was evident that Monty liked him, too, for all his schooled reserve.Kagig ordered one of the owner's sons to sweep a place near the fire,and there he superintended the spreading of Monty's blankets, closeenough to his own assorted heap for conversation without mutual offense.Will cleaned for himself a section of the opposite end of the platform,and Fred and I spread our blankets next to his. That left RustumKhan in a quandary. He stood irresolute for a minute, eying firstthe gipsies, who had stalled most of their animals and were beginningto occupy the platform on the other side; then considering the widegap between me and Monty. The dark-skinned man of breeding is farmore bitterly conscious of the color-line than any white knows how to be.

  We watched, disinclined to do the choosing for him, racial instinctuppermost. Rustum Khan strolled back to where his mare was beingcleaned by the lean Armenian servant, gave the boy a few curt orders,and there among the shadows made his mind up. He returned and stoodbefore Monty, Kagig eying him with something less than amiability.He pointed toward the ample room remaining between Monty and me.

  "Will the sahib permit? My izzat (honor) is in question."

  "Izzat be damned!" Monty answered.

  Rustum Khan colored darkly.

  "I shared a tent with you once on campaign, sahib, in the days before--thegood days before--those old days when--"

  "When you and I served one Raj, eh? I remember," Monty answered."I remember it was your tent, Rustum Khan. Unless memory plays trickswith me, the Orakzai Pathans had burned mine, and I had my choicebetween sharing yours or sleeping in the rain."

  "Truly, huzoor."

  "I don't recollect that I mouthed very much about honor on that occasion.If anybody's honor was in question then, I fancy it was yours. Imight have inconvenienced myself, and dishonored you, I suppose,by sleeping in the wet. You can dishonor the lot of us now, if youcare to, by--oh, tommyrot! Tell your man to put your blankets inthe only empty place, and behave like a man of sense!"

  "But, huzoor--"

  Monty dismissed the subject with a motion of his hand, and turnedto talk with Kagig, who shouted for yoghourt to be brought at once;and that set the sons of the owner of the place to hurrying in greatstyle. The owner himself was a true Turk. He had subsided intoa state of kaif already over on the far side of the fire, day-dreamingabout only Allah knew what rhapsodies. But the Turks intermarrywith the subject races much more thoroughly than they do anythingelse, and his sons did not resemble him. They were active youngmen, rather noisy in their robust desire to be of use.

  The gipsies, with Gregor Jhaere nearest to the owner of the kahvehand the fireplace, occupied the whole long platform on the otherside, each with his women around him--except that I noticed thatMaga avoided all the men, and made herself a blanket nest in deepshadow almost within reach of a mule's heels at the far end. I believedat the moment that she chose that position so as to be near to Will,but changed my mind later. Several times Gregor shouted for her,and she made no answer.

  The place had no other occupants. Either we were the only travelerson that road that night or, as seemed more likely, Kagig had exercisedauthority and purged the kahveh of other guests. Certainly our cominghad been expected, for there was very good yoghourt in ample quantity,and other food besides--meat, bread, cheese, vegetables.

  When we had all eaten, and lay back against the stone wall lookingat the fire, with great fanged shadows dancing up and down that madethe scene one of almost perfect savagery, Gregor called again forMaga. Again she did not answer him. So he rose from his place andreached for a rawhide whip.

  "I said she shall be thrashed!" he snarled in Turkish, and he madethe whip crack three times like sudden pistol-shots. Will did notcatch the words, and might not have understood them in any case,but Rustum Khan, beside me, both heard and understood.

  "Atcha!" he grunted. "Now we shall see a kind of happenings. Thatgirl is not a true gipsy, or else my eyes lie to me. They stoleher, or adopted her. She lacks their instincts. The gitanas, asthey call their girls, are expected to have aversion to white men.They are allowed to lure a white man to his ruin, but not to makehot love to him. She has offended against the gipsy law. The attaman*must punish. Watch the women. They take it all as a matter of course."

  ----------------*Attaman, gipsy headman.----------------

  "Maga!" thundered Gregor Jhaere, cracking the great whip again.I thought that Kagig looked a trifle restless, but nobody else wentso far as to exhibit interest, except that the old Turk by the fireemerged far enough out of kaif to open one eye, like a sly cat's.

  The attaman shouted again, and this time Maga mocked him. So hestrode down the room in a rage to enforce his authority, and draggedher out of the shadow by an arm, sending her whirling to the centerof the floor. She did not lose her feet, but spun and came to astand, and waited, proud as Satanita while he drew the whip slowlyback with studied cruelty. The old Turk opened both eyes.

  Nothing is more certain than that none of us would have permittedthe girl to be thrashed. I doubt if even Rustum Khan, no admirerof gips
ies or unveiled women, would have tolerated one blow. ButWill was nearest, and he is most amazing quick when his nervous NewEngland temper is aroused. He had the whip out of Gregor's hand,and stood on guard between him and the girl before one of us hadtime to move. The old Turk closed his eyes again, and sighed resignedly.

  "Our preux chevalier--preux but damned imprudent!" murmured Fred."Let's hope there's a gipsy here with guts enough to fight for titleto the girl. It looks to me as if Will has claimed her by patteran*law. The only man with right to say whether or not a woman shallbe thrashed is her owner. Once that right is established--"

  ---------------* Patteran, a gipsy word: trail.---------------

  "Touch her and I'll break your neck!" warned Will, without undueemotion, but truthfully beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  The gipsy stood still, simmering, and taking the measure of the capableAmerican muscles interposed between him and his legal prey. Everygipsy eye in the room was on him, and it was perfectly obvious thatwhatever the eventual solution of the impasse, the one thing he couldnot do was retreat. We were fewer in number, but much better armedthan the gipsy party, so that it was unlikely they would rally totheir man's aid. Kagig was an unknown quantity, but except thathis black eyes glittered rather more brightly than usual he madeno sign; and we kept quiet because we did not want to start afree-for-all fight. Will was quite able to take care of any singleopponent, and would have resented aid.

  Suddenly, however, Gregor Jhaere reached inside his shirt. Magascreamed. Rustum Khan beside me swore a rumbling Rajput oath, andwe all four leapt to our feet. Maga drew no weapon, although shecertainly had both dagger and pistol handy. Instead, she glancedtoward Kagig, who, strangely enough, was lolling on his blanketsas if nothing in the world could interest him less. The glance tookas swift effect as an electric spark that fires a mine. He stiffenedinstantly.

  "Yok!" he shouted, and at once there ceased to be even a symptomof impending trouble. Yok means merely no in Turkish, but it conveyedenough to Gregor to send him back to his place between his womenand the Turk unashamedly obedient, leaving Maga standing beside Will.Maga did not glance again at Kagig, for I watched intently. Therewas simply no understanding the relationship, although Fred affectedhis usual all-comprehensive wisdom.

  "Another claimant to the title!" he said. "A fight between Willand Kagig for that woman ought to be amusing, if only Will weren'ta friend of mine. Watch America challenge him!"

  But Will did nothing of the kind. He smiled at Maga, offered hera cigarette, which she refused, and returned to his place beyondFred, leaving her standing there, as lovely in the glowing firelightas the spirit of bygone romance. At that Kagig shouted suddenlyfor fuel, and three of the Turk's seven hoydens ran to heap it on.

  Instantly the leaping flames transformed the great, uncomfortable,draughty barn into a hall of gorgeous color and shadows without limit.There was no other illumination, except for the glow here and thereof pipes and cigarettes, or matches flaring for a moment. Barringthe tobacco, we lay like a baron's men-at-arms in Europe of the MiddleAges, with a captive woman to make sport with in the midst, onlyrather too self-reliant for the picture.

  Feeling himself warm, and rested, and full enough of food, Fred flunga cigarette away and reached for his inseparable concertina. Andwith his eyes on the great smoked beams that now glowed gold andcrimson in the firelight, he grew inspired and made his nearest tosweet music. It was perfectly in place--simple as the savagerythat framed us--Fred's way of saying grace for shelter, and adventure,and a meal. He passed from Annie Laurie to Suwannee River, and allbut made Will cry.

  During two-three-four tunes Maga stood motionless in the midst ofus, hands on her hips, with the fire-light playing on her face, untilat last Fred changed the nature of the music and seemed to be tryingto recall fragments of the song she had sung that afternoon. Presentlyhe came close to achievement, playing a few bars over and over, andleading on from those into improvization near enough to the realthing to be quite recognizable.

  Music is the sure key to the gipsy heart, and Fred unlocked it.The men and women, and the little sleepy children on the long woodenplatform opposite began to sway and swing in rhythm. Fred divinedwhat was coming, and played louder, wilder, lawlessly. And Magadid an astonishing thing. She sat down on the floor and pulled hershoes and stockings off, as unselfconsciously as if she were alone.

  Then Fred began the tune again from the beginning, and he had itat his finger-ends by then. He made the rafters ring. And withouta word Maga kicked the shoes and stockings into a corner, flung herouter, woolen upper-garment after them, and began to dance.

  There is a time when any of us does his best.Money--marriage--praise--applause (which is totally another thingthan praise, and more like whisky in itsworkings)--ambition--prayer--there is a key to the heart of each of usthat can unlock the flood-tides of emotion and carry us nolens volensto the peaks of possibility. Either Will, or else Fred's music, orthe setting, or all three unlocked her gifts that night. She dancedlike a moth in a flame--a wandering woman in the fire unquenchablethat burns convention out of gipsy hearts, and makes thepatteran--the trail--the only way worth while.

  Opposite, the gipsies sprawled in silence on their platform, breathinga little deeper when deepest approval stirred them, a little morequickly when her Muse took hold of Maga and thrilled her to expressionof the thoughts unknown to people of the dinning walls and streets.

  We four leaned back against our wall in a sort of silent revelry,Fred alone moving, making his beloved instrument charm wisely, callingto her just enough to keep a link, as it were, through which herimagery might appeal to ours. Some sort of mental bridge betweenher tameless paganism and our twentieth-century twilight there hadto be, or we never could have sensed her meaning. The concertina'swailings, mid-way between her intelligence and ours, served well enough.

  My own chief feeling was of exultation, crowing over the hoodedcity-folk, who think that drama and the tricks of colored light andshade have led them to a glimpse of the hem of the garment of Unrest--acheap mean feeling, of which I was afterward ashamed.

  Maga was not crowing over anybody. Neither did she only dance ofthings her senses knew. The history of a people seized her for areed, and wrote itself in figures past imagining between the crimsonfirelight; and the shadows of the cattle stalls.

  Her dance that night could never have been done with leather betweenbare foot and earth. It told of measureless winds and waters--ofthe distances, the stars, the day, the night-rain sweeping down--dewdropping gently--the hundred kinds of birds-the thousand animalsand creeping things--and of man, who is lord of all of them, andwoman, who is lord of man--man setting naked foot on naked earthand glorying with the thrill of life, new, good, and wonderful.

  One of the Turk's seven sons produced a saz toward the end--a littleTurkish drum, and accompanied with swift, staccato stabs of soundthat spurred her like the goads of overtaking time toward the peakof full expression--faster and faster--wilder and wilder--freer andfreer of all limits, until suddenly she left the thing unfinished,and the drum-taps died away alone.

  That was art--plain art. No human woman could have finished it.It was innate abhorrence of the anticlimax that sent her, havinglooked into the eyes of the unattainable, to lie sobbing for shortbreath in her corner in the dark, leaving us to imagine the endingif we could.

  And instead of anticlimax second climax came. Almost before theechoes of the drum-taps died among the dancing shadows overhead avoice cried from the roof in Armenian, and Kagig rose to his feet.

  "Let us climb to the roof and see, effendim," he said, pulling onhis tattered goat-skin coat.

  "See what, Ermenie?" demanded Rustum Khan. The Rajput's eyes werestill ablaze with pagan flame, from watching Maga.

  "To see whether thou hast manhood behind that swagger!" answeredKagig, and led the way. No man ever yet explained the racial aversions.

  "Kopek!--dog, thou!" growled the Rajput, but Kagig took no
noticeand led on, followed by Monty and the rest of us. Maga and the gipsiescame last, swarming behind us up the ladder through a hole amongthe beams, and clambering on to the roof over boxes piled in thedraughty attic. Up under the stars a man was standing with an armstretched out toward Tarsus.

  "Look!" he said simply.

  To the westward was a crimson glow that mushroomed angrily againstthe sky, throbbing and swelling with hot life like the vomit of acrater. We watched in silence for three minutes, until one of thegipsy women began to moan.

  "What do you suppose it is?" I asked then.

  "I know what it is," said Kagig simply.

  "Tell then."

  "'Effendi, that is the heart of Armenia burning. Those are the homesof my nation--of my kin!"

  "And good God, where d'you suppose Miss Vanderman is?" Fred exclaimed.

  Will was standing beside Maga, looking into her eyes as if he hopedto read in them the riddle of Armenia.