The Eye of Zeitoon Read online

  Chapter Four"We are the robbers, effendi!"

  THE ROAD

  There is a mystery concerning roadsAnd he who loves the Road shall never tire.For him the brooks have voices and the breezeBrings news of far-off leafiness and leasAnd vales all blossomy. The clinging mireShall never weary such an one, nor yet their loadsO'ercome the beasts that serve him. Rock and rillShall make the pleasant league go by as hoursWith secret tales they tell; the loosened stone,Sweet turf upturned, the bees' full-purposed drone,The hum of happy insects among flowers,And God's blue sky to crown each hill!Dawn with her jewel-throated birdsTo him shall be a new page in the BookThat never had beginning nor shall end,And each increasing hour delights shall lend--New notes in every sound--in every nookNew sights----new thoughts too wide for words,Too deep for pen, too high for human song,That only in the quietness of winding waysFrom tumult and all bitterness apartCan find communication with the heart--Thoughts that make joyous moments of the days,And no road heavy, and no journey long!

  The snow threatened in the mountains had not materialized, and theweather had changed to pure perfection. About an hour after we startedthe khan emptied itself behind us in a long string, jingling andclanging with horse and camel bells. But they turned northward topass through the famed Circassian Gates, whereas we followed theplain that paralleled the mountain range--our mules' feet hiddenby eight inches of primordial ooze.

  "Wish it were only worse!" said Monty. "Snow or rain might postponemassacre. Delay might mean cancellation."

  But there was no prospect whatever of rain. The Asia Minor spring,perfumed and amazing sweet, breathed all about us, spattered withlittle diamond-bursts of tune as the larks skyrocketed to let thewide world know how glad they were. Whatever dark fate might bebrooding over a nation, it was humanly impossible for us to feellow-spirited.

  Our Zeitoonli Armenians trudged through the mud behind us at a splendidpace--mountain-men with faces toward their hills. The Turks--ownersof the animals another man had hired to us--rode perched on top ofthe loads in stoic silence, changing from mule to mule as the hourspassed and watching very carefully that no mule should be overtaxedor chilled. In fact, the first attempt they made to enter intoconversation with us was when we dallied to admire a view of TaurusMountain, and one of them closed up to tell us the mules were catchingcold in the wind. (If they had been our animals it might have beenanother story.)

  Their contempt for the Zeitoonli was perfectly illustrated by thedifference in situation. They rode; the Armenians walked. Yet theArmenians were less afraid; and when we crossed a swollen ford wherea mule caught his forefoot between rocks and was drowning, it wasArmenians, not Turks, who plunged into the icy water and worked himfree without straining as much as a tendon.

  The Turks were obsessed by perpetual fear of robbers. That, andno other motive, made them tolerate the hectoring of Rustum Khan,who had constituted himself officer of transport, and brought upthe rear on his superb bay mare. As he had promised us he would,he rode well armed, and the sight of his pistol holsters, the rifleprotruding stock-first from a leather case, and his long Rajput saberprobably accomplished more than merely keeping Turks in countenance;it prevented them from scattering and bolting home.

  His own baggage was packed on two mules in charge of an Armenianboy, who was more afraid of our Turks than they of robbers. Yet,when we demanded of our muleteers what sort of men, and of what nationthe dreaded highwaymen might be they pointed at Rustum Khan's leanservant. At the khan the night before one of them had pointed outto Monty two Circassians and a Kurd as reputed to have a monopolyof robbery on all those roads. Nevertheless, they made the newaccusation without blinking.

  "All robbers are Armenians--all Armenians are robbers!" they assuredus gravely.

  When we halted for a meal they refused to eat with our Zeitoonli,although they graciously permitted them to gather all the firewood,and accepted pieces of their pasderma (sun-dried meat) as if thatwere their due. As soon as they had eaten, and before we had finished,Ibrahim, their grizzled senior, came to us with a new demand. Onits face it was not outrageous, because we were doing our own cooking,as any man does who has ever peeped into a Turkish servant'sbehind-the-scene arrangements.

  "Send those Armenians away!" he urged. "We Turks are worth twicetheir number!"

  "By the beard of God's prophet!" thundered Rustum Khan, "who gavecamp-followers the right to impose advice?"

  "They are in league with highwaymen to lead you into a trap!" Ibrahimanswered.

  Rustum Khan rattled the saber that lay on the rock beside him.

  "I am hunting for fear," he said. "All my life I have hunted forfear and never found it!"

  "Pekki!" said Ibrahim dryly. The word means "very well." The toneimplied that when the emergency should come we should do well notto depend on him, for he had warned us.

  We were marching about parallel with the course the completed Baghdadrailway was to take, and there were frequent parties of surveyorsand engineers in sight. Once we came near enough to talk with theGerman in charge of a party, encamped very sumptuously near his work.He had a numerous armed guard of Turks.

  "A precaution against robbers?" Monty asked, and I did not hear whatthe German answered.

  Rustum Khan laughed and drew me aside.

  "Every German in these parts has a guard to protect him from hisown men, sahib! For a while on my journey westward I had chargeof a camp of recruited laborers. Therefore I know."

  The German was immensely anxious to know all about us and our intentions.He told us his name was Hans von Quedlinburg, plainly expecting usto be impressed.

  "I can direct you to good quarters, where you can rest comfortablyat every stage, if you will tell me your direction," he said.

  But we did not tell him. Later, while we ate a meal, he came andquestioned our Turks very closely; but since they were in ignorancethey did not tell him either.

  "Why do you travel with Armenian servants?" he asked us finally beforewe moved away.

  "We like 'em," said Monty.

  "They'll only get you in trouble. We've dismissed all Armenian laborersfrom the railway works. Not trustworthy, you know. Our agents areout recruiting Moslems."

  "What's the matter with Armenians?"

  "Oh, don't you know?"

  "I'm asking."

  The German shrugged his shoulders.

  "I'll tell you one thing. This will illustrate. I had an Armenianclerk. He worked all day in my tent. A week ago I found him readingamong my private papers. That proves you can't trust an Armenian."

  "Ample evidence!" said Monty without a smile, but Fred laughed aswe rode away, and the German stared after us with a new set of emotionspictured on his heavy face.

  Late in the afternoon we passed through a village in which abouttwo hundred Armenian men and women were holding a gathering in achurch large enough to hold three times the number. One of themsaw us coming, and they all trooped out to meet us, imagining wewere officials of some kind.

  "Effendi," said their pastor with a trembling hand on Monty's saddle,"the Turks in this village have been washing their white garments!"

  We had heard in Tarsus what that ceremony meant.

  "It means, effendi, they believe their purpose holy! What shallwe do--what shall we do?"

  "Why not go into Tarsus and claim protection at the British consulate?"suggested Fred.

  "But our friends of Tarsus warn us the worst fury of all will bein the cities!"

  "Take to the hills, then!" Monty advised him.

  "But how can we, sir? How can we? We have homes--property--children!We are watched. The first attempt by a number of us to escape tothe hills would bring destruction down on all!"

  "Then escape to the hills by twos and threes. You ask my advice--Igive it."

  It looked like very good advice. The slopes of the foot-hills seemedcovered by a carpet of myrtle scrub, in which whole armies couldhave lain in ambush. And above that the cliffs of the Kara
Daghrose rocky and wild, suggesting small comfort but sure hiding-places.

  "You'll never make me believe you Armenians haven't hidden supplies,"said Monty. "Take to the hills until the fury is over!"

  But the old man shook his head, and his people seemed at one withhim. These were not like our Zeitoonli, but wore the settled gloomof resignation that is poor half-brother to Moslem fanaticism, caughtby subjection and infection from the bullying Turk. There was nothingwe could do at that late hour to overcome the inertia produced bycenturies, and we rode on, ourselves infected to the verge of misery.Only our Zeitoonli, striding along like men on holiday, retainedtheir good spirits, and they tried to keep up ours by singing theirextraordinary songs.

  During the day we heard of the chicken, as Will called her, somewhereon ahead, and we spent that night at a kahveh, which is a place withall a khan's inconveniences, but no dignity whatever. There theyknew nothing of her at all. The guests, and there were thirty besidesourselves, lay all around the big room on wooden platforms, and talkedof nothing but robbers along the road in both directions. Every manin the place questioned each of us individually to find out why wehad not been looted on our way of all we owned, and each man endedin a state of hostile incredulity because we vowed we had met norobbers at all. They shrugged their shoulders when we asked fornews of Miss Gloria Vanderman.

  There was no fear of Ibrahim and his friends decamping in the night,for the Zeitoonli kept too careful watch, waiting on them almostas thoughtfully as they fetched and carried for us, but never forgettingto qualify the service with a smile or a word to the Turks to implythat it was done out of pity for brutish helplessness.

  These Zeitoonli of ours were more obviously every hour men of a differentdisposition to the meek Armenians of the places where the Turkishheel had pressed. But for our armed presence and the respect accordedto the Anglo-Saxon they would have had the whole mixed company downon them a dozen times that night.

  "I'm wondering whether the Armenians within reach of the Turks arenot going to suffer for the sins of mountaineers!" said Fred, aswe warmed ourselves at the great open fire at one end of the room.

  "Rot!" Will retorted. "Sooner or later men begin to dare asserttheir love of freedom, and you can't blame 'em if they show it foolishly.Some folk throw tea into harbors--some stick a king's head on apole--some take it out for the present in fresh-kid stuff. TheseZeitoonli are men of spirit, or I'll eat my hat!"

  But if we ourselves had not been men of spirit, obviously capableof strenuous self-defense, our Zeitoonli would have found themselvesin an awkward fix that night.

  We supped off yoghourt--the Turkish concoction of milk--cow's, goat's,mare's, ewe's or buffalo's (and the buffalo's is best)--that is aboutthe only food of the country on which the Anglo-Saxon thrives.Whatever else is fit to eat the Turks themselves ruin by their wayof cooking it. And we left before dawn in the teeth of the ownerof the kahveh's warning.

  "Dangerous robbers all along the road!" he advised, shaking his headuntil the fez grew insecure, while Fred counted out the coins topay our bill. "Armenians are without compunction--bad folk! Ay,you have weapons, but so have they, and they have the advantage ofsurprise! May Allah the compassionate be witness, I have warned you!"

  "There will be more than warnings to be witnessed!", growled RustumKhan as he rode away. "Those others, who sharpened weapons all nightlong, and spoke of robbers, have been waiting three days at thatkahveh till the murdering begins!"

  That morning, on Rustum Khan's advice, we made our Turkish muleteersride in front of us. The Zeitoon men marched next, swinging alongwith the hillman stride that eats up distance as the ticked-off secondseat the day. And we rode last, admiring the mountain range on ourleft, but watchful of other matters, and in position to cut off retreat.

  "The last time a Turk ran away from me he took my Gladstone bag withhim!" said Fred. "No, only Armenians are dishonest. It was obedienceto his prophet, who bade him take advantage of the giaour--quitea different thing! Ibrahim's sitting on my kit, and I'm watchinghim. You fellows suit yourselves!"

  We passed a number of men on foot that morning all coming our way,but no Armenians among them. However, we exchanged no wayside gossip,because our Zeitoonli in front availed themselves of privilege andshouted to every stranger to pass at a good distance.

  That is a perfectly fair precaution in a land where every one goesarmed, and any one may be a bandit. But it leads to aloofness.Passers-by made circuits of a half-mile to avoid us, and when wespurred our mules to get word with them they mistook that for proofof our profession and bolted. We chased three men for twenty minutesfor the fun of it, only desisting when one of them took cover behinda bush and fired a pistol at us with his eyes shut.

  "Think of the lies he'll tell in the kahveh to-night about beatingoff a dozen robbers single-handed!" Will laughed.

  "Let's chase the next batch, too, and give the kahveh gang an ear-full!"

  "I rather think not," said Monty. "They'll say we're Armenian criminals.Let's not be the spark."

  He was right, so we behaved ourselves, and within an hour we hadtrouble enough of another sort. We began to meet dogs as big asNewfoundlands, that attacked our unmounted Zeitoonli, refusing tobe driven off with sticks and stones, and only retreating a littleway when we rode down on them.

  "Shoot the brutes!" Will suggested cheerfully, and I made ready toact on it.

  "For the lord's sake, don't!" warned Monty, riding at a huge blackmongrel that was tearing strips from the smock of one of our men.The owner of the dog, seeing its victim was Armenian, rather encouragedit than otherwise, leaning on a long pole and grinning in an unfencedfield near by.

  "The consul warned me they think more of a dog's life hereaboutsthan a man's. In half an hour there'd be a mob on our trail. Takethe Zeitoonli up behind us."

  Rustum Khan was bitter about what he called our squeamishness. Butwe each took up a man on his horse's rump, and the dogs decided thefun was no longer worth the effort, especially as we had riding whips.But skirmishing with the dogs and picking up the Armenians took time,so that our muleteers were all alone half a mile ahead of us, andhad disappeared where the road dipped between two hillocks, whenthey met with the scare they looked for.

  They came thundering back up the road, flogging and flopping on topof the loads like the wooden monkeys-on-a-stick the fakers used tosell for a penny on the curb in Fleet Street, glancing behind themat every second bound like men who had seen a thousand ghosts.

  We brought them to a halt by force, but take them on the whole, nowthat they were in contact with us, they did not look so much frightenedas convinced. They had made up their minds that it was not writtenthat they should go any farther, and that was all about it.

  "Ermenie!" said Ibrahim. And when we laughed at that he strokedhis beard and vowed there were hundreds of Armenians ambushed bythe roadside half a mile ahead. The others corrected him, declaringthe enemy were thousands strong.

  Finally Monty rode forward with me to investigate. We passed betweenthe hillocks, and descended for another hundred yards along a graduallysloping track, when our mules became aware of company. We couldsee nobody, but their long ears twitched, and they began to makepreparations preliminary to braying recognition of their kin.

  Suddenly Monty detected movement among the myrtle bushes about fiftyyards from the road, and my mule confirmed his judgment by brayinglike Satan at a side-show. The noise was answered instantly by achorus of neighs and brays from an unseen menagerie, whereat theowners of the animals disclosed themselves--six men, all smiling,and unarmed as far as we could tell--the very same six gipsies whohad pitched their tent in the midst of the khan yard at Tarsus.

  Then in a clearing at a little distance we saw women taking downa long low black tent, and between us and them a considerable herdof horses, mostly without halters but headed into a bunch by gipsychildren. Somebody on a gray stallion came loping down toward us,leaping low bushes, riding erect with pluperfect hand
s and seat.

  "I've seen that stallion before!" said I.

  "And the girl on his back is looking for somebody who owns her heart!"smiled Monty. "Hullo! Are you the lucky man?"'

  She reined the stallion in, and took a good, long look at us, shadingher eyes with her hand but showing dazzling white teeth between corallips. Suddenly the smile departed, and a look of sullen disappointmentsettled on her face, as she wheeled the stallion with a swing ofher lithe body from the hips, and loped away. Never, apparently,did two men make less impression on a maiden's heart. The six gipsiesstood staring at us foolishly, until one of them at last held hishand up palm outward. We accepted that as a peace signal.

  "Are you waiting here for us?" Monty asked in English, and the oldestof the six--a swarthy little man with rather bow legs--thought hehad been asked his name.

  "Gregor Jhaere," he answered.

  For some vague reason Monty tried him next in Arabic and then inHindustanee, but without result. At last he tried halting Turkish,and the gipsy replied at once in German. As Monty used to gettwo-pence or three-pence a day extra when he was in the British army,for knowing something of that tongue, we stood at once on common ground.

  "Kagig told us to wait here and bring you to him," said Gregor Jhaere.

  "Where is Kagig?" Monty asked, and the man smiled blankly--much moreeffectively than if he had shrugged his shoulders.

  "We obey Kagig at times," he said, as if that admission settled thematter. Then there was interruption. Rustum Khan came spurringdown the road with his pistol holsters unbuttoned and his saber clatteringlike a sutler's pots and pans, to see whether we needed help. Hehad no sooner reined in beside us than I caught sight of Will, drawnbetween curiosity and fear lest the muleteers might bolt, standingin his stirrups to peer at us from the top of the track between thehillocks. Somebody else caught sight of him too.

  There came a shrill about from over where the women were packingup, and everybody turned to look, Gregor Jhaere included. As hardas the gray stallion could take her in a bee line toward Will thedaughter of the dawn with flashing teeth and blazing eyes was ridingventre a terre.

  "Maga!" Gregor shouted at her, and then some unintelligible gibberish.But she took no more notice of him than if he had been a crow ona branch. In a minute she was beside Will, talking to him, and fromover the top of the rise we could hear Fred shouting sarcasticremonstrance.

  "She is bad!" Gregor announced in English. It seemed to be all theEnglish he knew.

  "Are you her father?" Monty asked, and Gregor answered in veryslipshod German:

  "She is the daughter of the devil. She shall be soundly thrashed!The chalana!* And he a Gorgio!"**

  ----------------* Chalana--She jockey (a compliment).** Gorgio--Gentile (an insult).----------------

  Suddenly Fred began to shout for help then, and we rode back, thegipsies following and Rustum Khan remaining on guard between themand their camp with his upbrushed black beard bristling defianceof Asia Minor. Our Turkish muleteers had decided to make a finalbolt for it, and were using their whips on the Zeitoonli, who clunggamely to the reins. As soon as we got near enough to lend a handthe Turks resigned themselves with a kind of opportune fatalism.The Zeitoonli promptly turned the tables on them by laying hold ofa leg of each and tipping them off into the mud. Ibrahim showedhis teeth, and reached for a hidden weapon as he lay, but seemedto think better of it. It looked very much as if those four Zeitoonliknew in advance exactly what the interruption in our journey meant.

  Will was out of the running entirely, or else the rest of us were,depending on which way one regarded it. He had eyes for nobody andnothing but the girl, nor she for any one but him, and nobody couldrightfully blame either of them. Yankee though he is, Will sat hismule in the western cowboy style, and he was wearing a cowboy hatthat set his youth off to perfection. She looked fit to flirt withthe lord of the underworld, answering his questions in a way thatwould have made any fellow eager to ask more. Strangely enough,Gregor Jhaere, presumably father of the girl appeared to have losthis anger at her doings and turned his back.

  Fred, smiling mischief, started toward them to horn in, as Will wouldhave described it, but at that moment about a dozen of the gipsywomen came padding uproad, fostered watchfully by Rustum Khan, whoseemed convinced that murder was intended somehow, somewhere. Theybrought along horses with them--very good horses--and Fred prefersa horse trade to triangular flirtation on any day of any week.

  The gipsies promptly fell to and off-saddled our loads under GregorJhaere's eye, transferring them to the meaner-looking among the beaststhe women had brought, taking great care to drop nothing in the mud.And at a word from Gregor two of the oldest hags came to lift usfrom our saddles one by one, and hold us suspended in mid-air whilethe saddles were transferred to better mounts. But there is an indignityin being held out of the mud by women that goes fiercely againstthe white man's grain, and I kicked until they set me back inthe saddle.

  Monty solved the problem by riding to higher, clean ground near theroadside, where we could stand on firm grass.

  Seeing us dismounted, the gipsies underwent a subtle mental changepeculiar to all barbarous people. To the gipsy and the cossack,and all people mainly dependent on the horse, to be mounted is tosignify participation in affairs. To be dismounted means to standaside and "let George do it."

  Gregor Jhaere became a different man. He grew noisy and in responseto his yelped commands they swooped in unprovoked attack on our unhappymuleteers. Before we could interfere they had thrown each Turk facedownward, our Zeitoonli helping, and were searching them with swiftintruding fingers for knives, pistols, money.

  The Turk leaves his money behind when starting on a journey at someother man's expense; but they did draw forth a most astonishingassortment of weapons. They were experts in disarmament. Maga Jhaerelost interest in Will for a moment, and pricked her stallion to aplace where she could judge the assortment better. Without any hesitationshe ordered one of the old women to pass up to her a mother-o'-pearlornamented Smith & Wesson, which she promptly hid in her bosom. Judgingby the sounds he made, that pistol was the apple of Ibrahim's oldeye, but he had seen the last of it. When we interfered, and hecould get to her stirrup to demand it back, Maga spat in his face;which was all about it, except that Monty made generous allowancefor the thing when paying the reckoning presently. As our servants,those Turks were, of course, entitled to our protection, and besidesthat weapon we had to pay for five knives that were gone beyond hopeof recovery.

  Monty paid our Turks off (for it was evident that even had they beenwilling they would not have been allowed to proceed with us anothermile). Then, as Ibrahim mounted and marshaled his party in front of him,he forgot manners as well as the liberal payment.

  "Mashallah!" (God be praised!) he shouted, with the slobber of excitementon his lips and beard. "Now I go to make Armenians pay for this!Let the shapkali,* too, avoid me! Ya Ali, ya Mahoma, Alahu!" (Oh,Ali, oh, Mahomet, God is God!)

  ---------------* Shapkali--hatted man-foreigner.---------------

  "Let's hope they haven't a spark of honesty!" said Monty cryptically,watching them canter away.

  "Why on earth--?"

  "Let's hope they ride back to the consul and swear they haven't receivedone piaster of their pay. That would let him know we're clear away!"

  "Optimist!" jeered Will. "That consul's a Britisher. He'd taketheir lie literally, and deduce we're no good!"

  For the moment the girl on the gray stallion had ridden away fromWill and was giving regal orders to the mob of women and shrill children,who obeyed her as if well used to it. Gregor Jhaere and his menstood staring at us, Gregor shaking his head as if our letting theTurks go free had been a bad stroke of policy.

  "Aren't you afraid to travel with all that mob of women and cattle?"asked Monty. "We've heard of robbers on the road."

  "We are the robbers, effendi!" said Gregor with an air of modesty.The others smirked, but he seemed disi
nclined to over-insist on thegulf between us.

  "Hear him!" growled Rustum Khan. "A thief, who boasts of thievingin the presence of sahibs! So is corruption, stinking in the sun!"

  He added something in another language that the gipsies understood,for Gregor started as if stung and swore at him, and Maga Jhaereleft her women-folk to ride alongside and glare into his eyes. Theywere enemies, those two, from that hour forward. He, once Hindu,now Moslem, had no admiration whatever to begin with for unveiledwomen. And, since the gipsy claims to come from India and may thereforebe justly judged by Indian standards, and has no caste, but is beneaththe very lees of caste, he loathed all gipsies with the prejudicepeculiar to men who have deserted caste in theory and in self-protectionclaim themselves above it. It was a case of height despising deepin either instance, she as sure of her superiority as he of his.

  There might have been immediate trouble if Monty had not taken hisnew, restless, fresh horse by the mane and swung into the saddle.

  "Forward, Rustum Khan!" he ordered. "Ride ahead and let those keeneyes of yours keep us out of traps!"

  The Rajput obeyed, but as he passed Will he checked his mare a moment,and waiting until Will's blue eyes met his he raised a warning finger.

  "Kubadar, sahib!"

  Then he rode on, like a man who has done his duty.

  "What the devil does he mean?" demanded Will.

  "Kubadar means, 'Take care'!" said Monty. "Come on, what are wewaiting for?"

  That was the beginning, too, of Will's feud with the Rajput, neitherso remorseless nor so sudden as the woman's, because he had a differentcode to guide him and also had to convince himself that a quarrelwith a man of color was compatible with Yankee dignity. We couldhave wished them all three either friends, or else a thousand milesapart two hundred times before the journey ended.

  As we rode forward with even our Zeitoonli mounted now on strongmules, Maga Jhaere sat her stallion beside Will with an air ofowning him. She was likely a safer friend than enemy, and we didnothing to interfere. Monty pressed forward. Fred and I fell tothe rear.

  "Haide!"* shouted Gregor Jhaere, and all the motley swarm of womenand children caught themselves mounts--some already loaded with thegipsy baggage, some with saddles, some without, some with grass haltersfor bridles. In another minute Fred and I were riding surroundedby a smelly swarm of them, he with big fingers already on the keysof his beloved concertina, but I less enamored than he of the company.

  -----------------* Haide!--Turkish, "Come on!"-----------------

  Women and children, loaded, loose and led horses were all mixed togetherin unsortable confusion, the two oldest hags in the world trustingthemselves on sorry, lame nags between Fred and me as if proximityto us would solve the very riddle of the gipsy race. And last ofall came a pack of great scrawny dogs that bayed behind us hungrily,following for an hour until hope of plunder vanished.

  "That little she-devil who has taken a fancy to Will," said Fredwith a grin, "is capable of more atrocities than all the Turks betweenhere and Stamboul! She looks to me like Santanita, Cleopatra, Salome,Caesar's wife, and all the Borgia ladies rolled in one. There'ssomething added, though, that they lacked."

  "Youth," said I. "Beauty. Athletic grace. Sinuous charm."

  "No, probably they all had all those."

  "Then horsemanship."

  "Perhaps. Didn't Cleopatra ride?"

  "Then what?" said I, puzzled.

  "Indiscretion!" he answered, jerking loose the catch of his infernalinstrument.

  "Don't be afraid, old ladies," he said, glancing at the harridansbetween us. "I'm only going to sing!"

  He makes up nearly all of his songs, and some of them, althoughirreverent, are not without peculiar merit; but that was one ofhis worst ones.

  The preachers prate of fallen manAnd choirs repeat the chant,While unco' guid with unction urgeRepression of the joys that surge,And jail for those who can't.The poor deluded duds forgetThat something drew the stingWhen Adam tiptoed to his fall,And made it hardly hurt at all.Of Mother Eve I sing!

  CHORUSOh, Mother Eve, dear Mother Eve,The generations come and go,But daughter Eve's as live as youWere back in Eden years ago!

  Oh, hell's not hell with Eve to tellAgain the ancient tale,But Eden's grassy ways and bowersDeprived of Eve to ease the hoursWould very soon grow stale!Red cherry lips that leap to laugh,And chic and flick and flairCan make black white for any one--The task of Sisyphus good fun!So what should Adam care!

  CHORUSOh, daughter Eve, dear daughter Eve,The tribulations go and come,But no adventure's ever tameWith you to make surprises hum!