y evening, and
it was a cavernous room with a floor of indurated mud and full of
eye-stinging wood-smoke and wind and the smell of beasts, unpartitioned,
with a weakly hostile custodian from whom no food could be got but a
little goat's flesh and bread. The meat Giorgio stuck upon a skewer in
gobbets like cats-meat and cooked before the fire. For drink there was
coffee and raw spirits. Against the wall in one corner was a slab of
wood rather like the draining board in a scullery, and on this the
guests were expected to sleep. The horses and the rest of the party
camped loosely about the adjacent corner after a bitter dispute upon
some unknown point between the horse owner and the custodian.

Amanda and Benham were already rolled up on their slanting board like a
couple of chrysalids when other company began to arrive through the open
door out of the moonlight, drawn thither by the report of a travelling
Englishwoman.

They were sturdy men in light coloured garments adorned ostentatiously
with weapons, they moved mysteriously about in the firelit darknesses
and conversed in undertones with Giorgio. Giorgio seemed to have
considerable powers of exposition and a gift for social organization.
Presently he came to Benham and explained that raki was available and
that hospitality would do no harm; Benham and Amanda sat up and various
romantic figures with splendid moustaches came forward and shook hands
with him, modestly ignoring Amanda. There was drinking, in which Benham
shared, incomprehensible compliments, much ineffective saying of "BUONA
NOTTE," and at last Amanda and Benham counterfeited sleep. This seemed
to remove a check on the conversation and a heated discussion in tense
undertones went on, it seemed interminably.... Probably very few aspects
of Benham and Amanda were ignored.... Towards morning the twanging of a
string proclaimed the arrival of a querulous-faced minstrel with a sort
of embryonic one-stringed horse-headed fiddle, and after a brief parley
singing began, a long high-pitched solo. The fiddle squealed pitifully
under the persuasion of a semicircular bow. Two heads were lifted
enquiringly.

The singer had taken up his position at their feet and faced them. It
was a compliment.

"OH!" said Amanda, rolling over.

The soloist obliged with three songs, and then, just as day was
breaking, stopped abruptly and sprawled suddenly on the floor as if he
had been struck asleep. He was vocal even in his sle