The Eye of Zeitoon by Talbot Mundy (ebooks children's books free .TXT) 📗

themselves before we resumed the journey to Zeitoon.

Naturally enough, Rustum Khan and his fiery unreason was the subject we discussed, and Fred laid law down as to how he should be dealt with whenever the chance should come to bring him to book. But Rustum Khan was a bagatelle compared to what was coming, if we had only known it. While we talked I saw Gregor Jhaere, the attaman of gipsies, ride down the track on a brown mule and dismount within ten yards of Kagig. He hobbled his mule, and went and sat close by Kagig and the Turk, engaging in a three-cornered talk with them. Kagig seemed to have expected him, for there was no sign of greeting or surprise.

There was nothing disturbing about Gregor's arrival on the scene; he was evidently helping Kagig to cross-examine the Turk and check up facts. Within their limits gipsies are about the best spies obtainable because of their ability to take advantage of credulity and their own immeasurable unbelief in protest or appearances. It was the individual who followed Gregor at a distance, and dismounted from a gray stallion quite a long way off in order not to draw attention to herself, who made my blood turn cold. I caught sight of Maga Jhaere first because the others had their backs toward her. Then the expression of my face brought Fred to his feet. By that time Magi had vanished out of view unaware that any one had seen her, creeping like a pantheress from rock to rock.

"What's the matter?" Fred demanded, sitting down again, ill-tempered with himself for being startled.

"Maga Jhaere!"

"How exciting!" said Gloria. "I'm crazy to meet her."

But Will looked less excited and more anxious than I had ever seen him, and we all three laughed.

"All right!" he said. "I tell you it's no joke. That woman believes she's got her hooks in."

We tried to go on talking naturally, but lapsed into uncomfortable silence as the minutes dragged by and no Maga put in her appearance. Fred began humming through his nose again in that ridiculous way that he thinks seems unconcerned, but that makes his best friends yearn to smite him hip and thigh.

"I guess you were mistaken," Will said at last, spreading out his shoulders with relief at the mere suggestion. But I was facing the direction of Zeitoon, as he was not, and again the expression of my face betrayed the facts.

There were two large stones leaning together, with a small triangular gap between them, less than thirty feet from where we sat. In that gap I could see a pair of eyes, and nothing else. They had almost exactly the expression of a panther's that is stalking, not its quarry, but its mortal foe. In spite of having seen Maga approaching, I would have believed them an animal's eyes, only that from experience I knew an animal's eyes betray fear and anger without reason, whereas these blazed with the desperate reasoning that holds fear in contempt. Panthers can hate, be afraid, sweep fear aside with anger, and plan painstakingly for murderous attack; but it is only behind human eyes that one may recognize the murder—purpose based on argument.

"I see her," I said. "I suspect she's got a pistol, and—"

I had not known until that moment that the short hair was standing up the back of my head, but I felt it go down with a creepy cold chill as I spoke. Then once more it rose. Knowing she was seen and recognized, Maga got to her feet and stood on the larger of the two stones, looking down on us. Her hands were on her hips, and I could see no weapon, but her lips moved in voiceless imprecation.

"Are you Maga Jhaere?" asked Gloria, first of us all to recover some measure of self-command.

Maga nodded. She was barefooted, clothed only in bodice and leather jacket and a rather short ochre-colored skirt that blew in the gaining wind and showed the outline of her lithe young figure. Her long black hair billowed and galloped in the wind behind her.

"I am Maga Jhaere," she said slowly, addressing Gloria. "Who are you?"

"My name is Gloria Vanderman."

"And that man beside you—who is he?"

Gloria did not answer. Will looked more embarrassed than the devil caught in daylight, and Fred recovered his mental equilibrium sufficiently to chuckle.

"Is he your husband?"

"No."

"Then what you want with 'im?"

No one said a word. Only, Fred made a movement with his hand behind him that Maga noticed and spurned with a toss of her chin.

"You coming to Zeitoon?"

Gloria nodded. Glancing over toward Kagig I saw that he was aware of Maga and was watching her out of the corner of his eye while he talked with Gregor and the Turk. They were both getting angry with the Turk and using gestures suggestive of impending agony by way of emphasis. The Turk was growing fidgety.

Maga spread her arms out as if she were embracing all the universe and called it hers.

"Then—if you ar-re coming to Zeitoon—you choose first a 'usband. There are—many 'usbands. Some 'ave lost a wife—some 'ave sick wife—some not yet never 'ad no wife. Plenty Armenians—also two other men there—but you let that one—Will—alone! Choose a 'usband—marry,'im—then you come to Zeitoon! If you come without a 'usband—I will keel you—do you understand?"

"Now then, America!" grinned Fred in a stage aside that Maga could hear as clearly as if it had been intended for her. "Let's see the eagle scream for liberty!"

"Eagle scream?" said Maga, almost screaming herself. "What you know about eagles? You ol' fool! That man Will is thinking you ar-re 'is frien'. You ar-re not 'is frien'! Let 'im come with me, an' I will show 'im what ar-re eagles—what is freedom—what is knowledge—what is life! I know. You ol' fool, you not know! You ol' fool, you marry that woman—then you can bring 'er to Zeitoon an' she is safe! Otherwise—"

She reached in the bosom of her blouse and drew out, not the mother-o'-pearl-plated pistol that I feared, but a knife with an eighteen-inch blade of glittering steel. Instantly Fred covered her with his own repeater, but she laughed in his face.

"You ol' fool, you ar-re afraid to shoot me!"

If she meant that Fred would feel squeamish about shooting before she hurled the knife, then she was certainly right. But she knew better than to make one preliminary motion. And Kagig knew better than to permit further pleasantries. I saw him whisper to Gregor, and the gipsy attaman started on hands and knees to creep round behind her. But Maga's eyes were practised like those of all other wild creatures in detecting movement behind her as well as in front. She spat, and gave vent to a final ultimatum.

"You 'ave 'eard. I said—you let that man Will Yerr-kees alone!
An' don't you dare come to Zeitoon without a 'usband!"

Then she turned and dodged Gregor, and ran for her gray stallion—mounted the savage brute with a leap from six feet away, and rode like the wind toward the gut of the pass that shut off Zeitoon from our view. A minute later a shell from a small-bore cannon screamed overhead, and burst a hundred yards beyond us on a sheet of rock.

"Not bad for a ranging shot!" said Fred, suddenly as self-possessed as if the world never held such a thing as an untamed woman.

"Observe, you sportmen all!" Kagig exclaimed, getting to his feet. "The Turkish nobility are proceeding to rescue poor Armenians. Behold, their charity comes even from the cannon's mouth! It is time to go now, lest it overtake us! No cannon can come in sight of Zeitoon. Follow me."

With his usual sudden oblivion of everything but the main objective Kagig mounted and rode away, followed by Gregor in charge of the prisoner, and by a squadron or so of mounted Zeitoonli who attempted no formation but came cantering as each detachment realized that their leader was on the move. We found ourselves last, without an armed man between us and the enemy, although without a doubt there were still dozens of fugitive poor wretches who had not had the courage or perhaps the strength to overtake us yet.

Kagig had had the forethought to leave comparatively fresh mules for us to ride, and there was not any particular reason for hurry. Will went ahead, with Gloria and Anna beside him on one mule—Gloria laughing him out of countenance because of his nervousness on her account, but he insistent on the danger in case of repeated gun-fire. Fred rode slowly beside me in the rear, for we still hoped to encourage a few stray fugitives to come out of their hiding holes and follow us to safety.

A second cannon shot, not nearly so well aimed as the first had been, went screaming over toward our left and landed without bursting among low bushes. A third and a fourth followed it, and the last one did explode. That was plainly too much for some one who had dodged into hiding when the second shot fell; we saw him come rushing out from cover like a lunatic, unconscious of direction and only intent on shielding the top of his head with his hands.

"Is the poor devil hurt?" I said, wondering. But Fred broke into a roar of laughter; and he is not a heartless man—merely gifted more than usual with the hunter's eye that recognizes sex and species of birds and animals at long range. I can see farther than Fred can, but at recognizing details swiftly I am a blind bat compared to him.

"The martyred biped!" he laughed. "Peter Measel by the God of happenings!"

We rode over toward him, and Peter it was, running with his eyes shut. He screamed when we stopped him, and sobbed instead of talking when we pulled him in between our mules and offered him two stirrup leathers to hold. He seemed to think that standing between the mules would protect him from the artillery fire, and as we were not in any hurry we took advantage of that delusion to let him recover a modicum of nerve.

And the moment that began to happen he was the same sweet Peter Measel with the same assurance of every other body's wickedness and his own divinity, only with something new in his young life to add poignancy.

"What were you doing there?" demanded Fred, as we got him to towing along between us at last.

"I was looking for her."

"For whom?"

"For Maga Jhaere."

Fred allowed his ribs to shake in silent laughter that annoyed the mule, and we had to catch Measel all over again because the beast's crude objections filled the martyred biped full of the desire to run.

"Somebody must save that girl!" he panted. "And who else can do it? Who else is there?"

"There's only you!" Fred agreed, choking down his mirth.

"I'm glad you agree with me. At least you have that much blessedness, Mr. Fred. D'you know that girl was willing to be a murderess? Yes! She tried to murder Rustum Khan. Rustum Khan ought to be hanged, for he is a villain—a black villain! But she must not have blood on her hands—no, no!"

"Why didn't she murder him?" demanded Fred. "Qualms at the last moment?"

"No. I'm sorry to say no. She has no God-likeness yet. But that will come. She will repent. I shall see to that. It was I who prevented her, and she all but murdered me! She would have murdered me, but Kagig held her wrist; and to punish her he gave an order that I should preach to her morning, afternoon, and evening—three times a day. So I had my opportunity. There was a guard of gipsy women set to see that she obeyed."

"Continue," said Fred. "What happened?"

"She broke away, and came down to see the fighting."

"Why did you follow her? Weren't you afraid?"

"Oh, Mr. Fred, if you only knew! Yet I felt impelled to find her.
I could not trust her out of sight."