Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/152

 night air changed to warmth, and the smell of food came to our nostrils.

We stopped, and our bandages were removed.

I blinked and rubbed my eyes. We were in a large low room, the floor of which was partially covered with sheep-skins. A fire was burning, inside a ring of stones, in the middle of the floor, which was the bare earth, and a man was sitting by it, cross-legged, cooking.

"Kali spera sas kai kalos orisete!" (Good evening and welcome!) he said to us. "The master will be in shortly. Pray be seated."

We sat down on some sheep-skins, and I looked about me with interest. The longer I looked the larger the room grew. Its shadowy ends seemed to stretch off indefinitely. The ceiling was roughly vaulted, and I judged that it must be a cave, of which there are many in the mountains. Numerous weapons lay on the ground or hung on the walls, but there was nothing terrifying about the place.

Very soon the leader came in. He was a man of about forty, dressed in European clothes and unmistakably a dandy. He was tall and well-built, and his black hair was parted in the middle, and carefully combed into two large curly waves. His long black moustache was martially turned up at the ends.

He bowed to us as if he were a diplomat, and we his distinguished guests.