He laughed with a sort of hard good humor.

“Since when have Eenglis sportmen waited on the weather?  Ah, but you are right, effendi, none should tell the truth in this place, unless in hope of being disbelieved!” He laid a finger on his right eye, as I have seen Arabs do when they mean to ascribe to themselves unfathomable cunning.  “Since you entered this common room you have not ceased to observe me closely.  The other sportman has watched those Zingarri.  What have you learned?”

He stood with lean hands crossed now in front of him, looking at us down his nose, not ceasing to smile, but a hint less at his ease, a shade less genial.

“I have heard you—­and them—­described as jingaan,” I answered, and he stiffened instantly.

Whether or not they took that for a signal—­or perhaps he made another that we did not see—­the six undoubted gipsies got up and left the room, shambling out in single file with the awkward gait they share in common with red Indians.

“Jingaan,” he said, “are people who lurk in shadows of the streets to rob belated travelers.  That is not my business.”  He looked very hard indeed at the Persian, who decided that it might as well be supper-time and rose stiffly to his feet.  The Persians rob and murder, and even retreat, gracefully.  He bade us a stately and benignant good evening, with a poetic Persian blessing at the end of it.  He bowed, too, to the Zeitoonli, who bared his teeth and bent his head forward something less than an inch.

“They call me the Eye of Zeitoon!” he announced with a sort of savage pride, as soon as the Persian was out of ear-shot.

Will pricked his ears—­schoolboy-looking ears that stand out from his head.

“I’ve heard of Zeitoon.  It’s a village on a mountain, where a man steps out of his front door on to a neighbor’s roof, and the women wear no veils, and—­”

The man showed his teeth in another yellow smile.

“The effendi is blessed with intelligence!  Few know of Zeitoon.”

Will and I exchanged glances.

“Ours,” said Will, “is the best room in the khan, over the entrance gate.”

“Two such chilabi should surely live like princes,” he answered without a smile.  If he had dared say that and smile we would have struck him, and Monty might have been alive to-day.  But he seemed to know his place, although he looked at us down his nose again in shrewd appraisal.

Will took out tobacco and rolled what in the innocence of his Yankee heart he believed was a cigarette.  I produced and lit what he contemptuously called a “boughten cigaroot”—­Turkish Regie, with the scent of aboriginal ambrosia.  The Zeitoonli took the hint.

“Yarim sa’ at,” he said.  “Korkakma!”

“Meanin’?” demanded Will.

“In half an hour.  Do not be afraid!” said he.

“Before I grow afraid of you,” Will retorted, “you’ll need your friends along, and they’ll need knives!”