“I don’t live around here,” Ames replied. “Wait a minute. I’ll ask my friend.”
He tapped upon one of the windows opening on the narrow iron porch, and both heard the sound of a violin within, a queer, soft harmony of undertones. Dmitri sat cross-legged on his couch like a merchant in a Bagdad bazaar, his head twisted over his violin as though it had been the head of a girl he loved held in the curve of his arm.
On a stool beside the table was Steccho, brewing coffee in a long-handled copper urn he held over a brazier of charcoal. He started up at the sound of a step on the porch, but Dmitri calmed him.
“It is only Griff,” he said, rising to open the door. Ames stood on the threshold, his hand on the knob. And the boy at the brazier heard him ask where Ferad Steccho lived. Before he could warn Dmitri, Georges had caught the answer and was bowing before him.
“I disturb you, I fear,” he said gravely. “I merely sought an old friend.”
Steccho’s face was rigid with alarm and fear. The skin seemed to tighten over his high, swarthy cheekbones. His eyes were brilliant, his lips a mere line of red in the graying tan of his face.
“I come!” he responded.
CHAPTER XV
Dmitri laid aside his violin, his eyebrows lifted querulously.
“Now, why do you suppose that black-browed grenadier comes to my threshold at dead of night and scares my friend? Sit down, Griff, sit down. You shall have such a sup of coffee as you have never tasted before, purest Mocha straight from Medina in a sack. The boy was frightened, eh?”