Page:Talbot Mundy - Eye of Zeitoon.djvu/289

Rh money, I would not have sent my diamond and the watch and chain! Neither, if the horse and saddle had been within my reach would I have sent an order to deliver those! That is why Zeitoon has never altogether trusted me! Some, but never all, until to-night!

"My brother—"

He stood up, with the motions of a man who is stiff with weariness. "—I salute you! You have taught me my needed lesson!"

"I wonder!" whispered Fred to me. "Remember Peter at the fireside? Methinks friend Kagig doth too much protest! We'll see. Nemesis comes swiftly as a rule."

I shoved Fred oft his balance, rolled him over, and sat on him, because cynicism and iconoclasm are twin deities I neither worship nor respect. But at times Fred Oakes is gifted with uncanny vision. While he struggled explosively to throw me off, the door began resounding to steady thumps, and at a sign from Kagig, Maga opened it.

There strode in nine Armenians, followed closely by one of the gipsies of Gregor Jhaere's party, who whispered to Maga through lips that hardly moved, and made signals to Kagig with a secretive hand like a snake's head. I got off Fred's stomach then, and when he had had his revenge by emptying hot pipe ashes down my neck he sat close beside me and translated what followed word for word. It was all in Armenian, spoken in deadly earnest by hairy men on edge with anxiety and yet compelled to grudging patience by the presence of strangers and knowledge of the hour's necessity.

When the gipsy had finished making signals to Kagig he sat down and seemed to take no further interest. But a little later I caught sight of him by the dancing