CHAPTER XVI
THE RED STONE
Nikka and I pouched our shares of the loot we had brought in, Nikka appropriating to himself Watkins's Birmingham silver watch. The Gypsy girl never took her eyes off him as she absently refastened her tattered bodice.
"We are ready," said Nikka.
Her face flowered in an instantaneous smile.
"It is well, Giorgi Bordu. Come with me."
She led us across the courtyard to the building which fronted it on the left and was extended by the brick addition I have spoken of to shut in partially the rear of the court which abutted on the Bosphorus. A man was leaning over in the doorway, strapping up a bundle, and Kara planted her bare foot in the middle of his back, sending him sprawling. He was up in a flash, with his knife out and his face distorted with anger; but when he saw who had kicked him, the anger turned to smiles. He swung the bundle on his shoulder and swaggered off. And Kara looked at Nikka, with the expectant manner of a child who has performed a trick and expects to be applauded for it.
I grinned. I couldn't help it. But Nikka only motioned impatiently to the doorway. She caught her lip in a pout, dug her toes in the dust and affected not to understand him; but Nikka took one stride, with arm extended, and she danced away, all smiles again. Apparently, she didn't mind as long as she made him look at her.
Inside the door was a big, stone-paved hall. There were traces of carvings on the capitals of the pillars and a spaciousness that spoke of ancient glories. The stairs that led to the upper story were railed with marble and grooved deep by the tread of countless feet. But the place reeked with the squalor of a tenement. Three old women were huddled in front of a fire that blazed on an enormous hearth, and strings of onions and garlic hung from hooks in the ceiling. All around were scattered dirty piles of blankets and personal belongings.
Kara skipped across to the fireplace, and tapped the oldest of the three women on the shoulder.