Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-01-09
CHAPTER VIII.-Continued.

Having settled these questions to his
satisfaction, there remained but one other,
how to spend his time. 1t would be USE
less to seek the English bar before noon.
Might as well ramble through the native
town and the bazaars. He might pick up
some little curio to give to Fortune. So
he beckOned to an idle driver, climbed
into the carriage and was driven on as IL
empires hung upon minutes.
Ryanne never wearied Of the bazaars in
Cairo. They We're to him no less enchant-
ing than the circus parades of his youth.
In certain wakrs they were not to be com
pared with those I'm Constantinople and
Smyrna; but, on the other hand, there
was more light, more charm, more color.
Perhaps the magic nearness Of the desert
had something to do with it, the rainless
skies. the ever-recurring suggestions of
antiquity. His lively observation, his
sense of the picturesque and the humor-
Gus, always close to the surface, gave him
that singular impetus which makes man
prowler. This gift had made possible
his success in old Bagdad. Some years
before he had prowled through the mar
row city streets, had noted the windings.
the blind alleys, and had never forgotten.
Faces and localities were written indelibly
upon his memory.
One rode to the baZaars. but walked
through them or mounted donkeys.
Ryanne preferred his own legs So did
Mahomed. Once, so close did he come
that he could have put his two brown
hands round the infiders throat. But. pa
tence. Did not the Koran teach patience
among the higher laws? Patience. He
could not, madly as he had dreamed,
throttle the white liar here in the bazaars.
That would not bring the holy Yhiordes
to his hands. He must wait. He must
plan to lure the man out at night, then
- L. 0nxA Sr-A<
the desert where no man might be his
master. Oh. the holy Yhiordes should be
his again; it was written.
The cries, the shouts, the tower Of Ba-
bel reclaimed; the intermingling Of the
races OF the world-the Englishman, the
American, the German, the Italian. the
Frenchman. the Greek, the Levantine, the
purple-black Ethiopian. the bronze Nu-
bian; the yelled women. the naked chill
dren; all the color tones known to art, but
predominating, that marvellous faded tint
OF blue, the Cairene blue in the heavens
In the waters, in the dyes.
make way, o my mother!" bawled a.
donkey boy to the old crone pedding
matches.
"Backsheeshl Backsheesh!' in the
eight tones OF the human voice. From
the beggar, his brother. his uncle. his
grandfather. his children and his chill
dren's children. "Backsheesh. back
sheesh!'
ITO the right!' was shrilled into
Ryanne's ear; and he lodged. A troop of
donkeys passed, laden with tourists. un-
happy, fretful,, self-conscious. A water
carrier brushed against him, and he
whitfield the fresh dampness Of the bulging
goatskin. A woman. the long, black head
veil streaming out behind in the clutch
of the monkeylike hand Of a toddling
child, carried a terra-cotta water jar upon
her head The grace with which she
moved. the abruptness OF the color
changes caught Ryanne's rowing eye and
filled it with pleasure.
Dust rose and subsidized. eddied and oot-
tied; beggars blind and one-eyed squatted