“What is the matter?”
“There is a fellow here who wants lodging for his beasts, Donna Rosa.”
“How many beasts?”
“Three, as you see, Donna Rosa—a monkey, an ass, and a camel.”
The crowd was paying no attention to the dialogue. Some of them were exciting Zavali, others were feeling of Barbara’s legs, commenting on the callous spots on his knees and chest. Two guards of the salt store-houses, who had travelled to the sea-ports of Asia Minor, were telling in a loud voice of the wonderful properties of the camel, talking confusedly of having seen some of them dancing, while carrying upon their necks a lot of half-naked musicians and women of the Orient. The listeners, greedy to hear these marvellous tales, cried:
“Tell us some more! Tell us some more!” They stood around the story-tellers in attentive silence, listening with dilated eyes.
Then one of the guards, an old man whose eyelids were drawn up by the wind of the sea, began to tell of the Asiatic countries, and as he went on, his imagination became excited by the stories which he told, and his tales grew more wonderful.
A sort of mysterious softness seemed to penetrate the sunset. In the minds of the listeners, the lands which were described to them rose vividly before their imaginations in all their strange splendour. Across the arch of the Porta, which was already in shadow, could be seen boats loaded with salt rocking upon the river, the salt seeming to absorb all the light of the evening, giving the boats the appearance of palaces of precious crystals. Through the greenish tinted heavens rose the crescent of the moon.
“Tell us some more! Tell us some more!” the younger of those assembled were crying.
In the meanwhile Turlendana had put his beasts under cover and supplied them with food. This being done, he had again set forth with Binchi-Banche, while the people remained gathered about the door of the barn where the head of the camel appeared and disappeared behind the rock gratings.