A negro, gorgeously clad, guarding closely a slim female, draped from
head to foot in virginal white, attracted the musician. The man's face
was monstrous in its suggestion of evil, and furthermore shocking,
because his nose was a gaping hole. Evidently a scimiter had performed
this surgical operation, Pobloff mused.
The giant's eyes offended him, they so stared, and threateningly.
Pobloff was not a coward. After his adventure in Balak, he feared
neither man nor devil, and he insolently returned the black fellow's
gaze. They stood about a buffet and drank coffee. The young woman--her
outlines were girlish--did not touch anything; she turned her face in
Pobloff's direction, so he fancied, and spoke at intervals to her
attendant.
"I must be a queer-looking bird to this Turk and her keeper--probably
some Georgian going to a rich Mussulman's harem in company with his
eunuch," Pobloff repeated to himself.
A gong was banged. Before its strident vibrations had ceased troubling
the thin morning air, the train began to move slowly out of Kerb.
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