"One God," he said. "And two men underneath. Two men, one soul."
He looked at me benevolently and pointed to his heart.
"Two men, one soul," he repeated, and crossed himself. "You
understand?"
"I understand."
Then he added finally, "Turn the lamp as high as you like," and suited
the action to the word by turning it so high that one saw a dense
cloud of smoke beyond the lurid flame.
"Good-night!"
"Good-night!"
My queer guardian angel disappeared. I fastened the door so that it
should not swing in the wind, and then climbed back into my wire
hammock, stretched out my limbs, laid my cheek on my pack, and slept.
Nothing disturbed me, though I woke in the night, and looking round,
missed the Ikon lamp which would have been burning had I been in
a home. It was a saint's day. The absence of the Ikon told me the
difference between sleeping in a house and sleeping in a home.
Perhaps it was because of this difference that my host blessed me so
earnestly.
Next morning I sought my host in vain. He had apparently left the town
before dawn with a waggon of produce that had to be carted to Tuapse.
At breakfast in the Turkish coffee-house I looked with some amusement
at the bread and carrot, discarded the latter, but munched the former
to the accompaniment of a plate of chicken and a bottle of wine.
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