We rattled forward, on and upward, as if the panorama were unrolling
and we were the static point, getting out of nobody's way for the
best reason in the world--that everybody hid at first sight or sound
of us, except when we passed near villages, and then the great
fierce-fanged curs chased and bayed behind us in short-winded fury.

"The dogs bark," quoted Fred serenely, "but the caravan moves on!"

An hour before dark we swung round a long irregular spur of the hills
that made a wide bend in the road, and halted at a lonely kahveh
--a wind-swept ruin of a place, the wall of whose upper story was
patched with ancient sacking, but whose owner came out and smiled
so warmly on us that we overlooked the inhospitable frown of his
unplastered walls, hoping that his smile and the profundity of his
salaams might prove prophetic of comfort and cleanliness within.
Vain hope!

Maga left Will's side then, for there was iron-embedded custom to
be observed about this matter of entering a road-house. In that
land superstition governs just as fiercely as the rest those who
make mock of the rule-of-rod religions, and there is no man or woman
free to behave as be or she sees fit. Every one drew aside from
Monty, and he strode in alone through the split-and-mended door,
we following next, and the gipsies with their animals clattered noisily
behind us. The women entered last, behind the last loaded mule,
and Maga the very last of all, because she was the most beautiful,
and beauty might bring in the devil with it only that the devil is
too proud to dawdle behind the old hags and the horses.

We found ourselves in an oblong room, with stalls and a sort of pound