The Eye Of Zeitoon by Talbot Mundy

Author:Talbot Mundy
Language: eng
Format: epub

The Eye Of Zeitoon

Chapter Twelve “America’s way with a woman is beyond...

CUI BONO?

Did caution keep the gates of Greece, Ye saints of “safety first!” Twixt Thessaly and Locris when Leonidas’ thousand men Died scornful of the proffered peace Of Xerxes the accurst? Watch ye have kept, ward ye have kept, But watch and ward were vain If love and gratitude have slept While ye stood guard for gain.

Or ye, who count the niggard cost In time and coin and gear Of succoring the under-dog, How often have ye seen a hog, Establishing his glutton boast, Survive a famine year? Fast ye have kept, feast ye have made; Vain were the deeds and doles If it was fear that ye obeyed To save your coward souls.

Ye banish beauty to the stews For lack of eyes that see, And stifle joy with deadly rote As empty as the texts ye quote, The while forgiveness ye refuse Lest wrath dishonored be. Gray are your days, drab are your ways, Strong are your fashioned bars, But, ye who ask if service pays - Who polishes the stars?

Spring in Armenia is almost as much like heaven as heaven itself could be, if it were not for the unspeakable Turk, but his blight rests on everything. I could have kept awake that morning without Fred’s irreverent music, simply for sake of the scenery, if its freshness had been untainted. But there hung a sickly, faint pall of smoke that robbed the green landscape of all liveliness. One breathed weariness instead of wine.

We could not possibly have lost the way, because our crawling column had left a swath behind it of trampled grass and trodden crossing-places where the track wound and rewound in a game of hide-and-seek with tinkling streams. But we began to wonder, nevertheless, why we caught up with nobody.

It was drawing on to ten in the morning, and I had dozed off for about the dozenth time, with my horse in pretty much the same condition, when I heard Will’s voice at last, and looked up. He was standing alone on a ledge overlooking the track, but I could see the ends of rifles sticking up close by. If we had been an enemy, we should have stood small chance against him.

“Where are the rest of you?” I asked, and he laughed!

“Women, kids and wounded all swore a pitched battle was raging behind them. Most of them wanted to turn back and lend a hand. I thought you guys mighty cruel to put all that scare into a crowd in their condition–but I see–“

“Guests, America! My country’s at peace with Turkey! Where shall we stow our guests?”

“There’s a village below here.”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. But behind him was the apex of a spur thrust out in midcurve of the mountainside, and one could not see around that. We had emerged out of the straggling outposts of the forest high above the plain, and to our right the whole panorama lay snoozing in haze.

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