Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/180

164 from the Meshwar in the direction of El-Douh, when suddenly I felt some one touch my arm and turned to find close to me the young man with the feminine face, holding his black mantle close about him. Without speaking, I waited to see what this mysterious person would say.

"Medersas, dars, fonduks, kisarias, &hellip;" he recited in a grave, penetrating voice, separating each word from the other.

"I don't understand," I answered with a shrug of my shoulders.

The stranger lowered his eyes for a second, as if he were troubled, raised them quickly and whispered in Russian:

"When did you come from Russia?"

I hesitated a moment, then answered in the same tongue:

"Not very long ago," at which he smiled and answered:

"The work is everywhere going forward."

I realized that I had before me either a Communist agent or a spy and asked:

"What work?"

He was evidently confused and, wrapping himself in his bournous, soon lost himself in the crowd. Once after this I met this mysterious man near the gate, Bab Gwissa, while Hafid and I were listening to a wandering bard. He was passing through the crowd, and had apparently not seen me, though he must have felt my presence and my constant gaze, for he suddenly turned and walked away. It reminded me of the days in Siberia in 1919,