We each had our several occupations when we felt that it was possible to snatch any time from contemplation. Hassan would retire into the hut at one end of the raft, and, sitting cross-legged on the floor, would chop up tobacco; whilst one of the Zaptiehs, seated at the door, would roll up the cigarettes. Now and then he would reach out one to me.—"Will you smoke, Effendi?"—and the other Zaptieh, seated outside, would strike me a match.
Arten might easily have worked all day, but he seemed to spend most of his time contemplating the brazier on which he occasionally cooked something. At intervals he blew up the live charcoal with measured puffs; or he would sit perilously near the extreme edge of the raft contemplating the sky, with the tails of his dirty black overcoat dangling in the water, holding the dishes in the river until most signs of the last meal were removed from them. Being an Armenian he was endowed with a more restless nature, and the apparent contemplation in his demeanour was but the dejection resulting from a broken spirit. When not engaged in his own pursuits he would break in on the silence by pointing out what he considered objects of interest.
"Look! look! there is a bird," he would say; and the true Easterns would gaze on without moving a muscle, neither looking at him nor the bird. Arten would look nervously round, knowing from long habit that he was being despised, but unable to understand the grating, silencing effect of allusions to the obvious at the moment when the obvious is being most thoroughly appreciated.
The two raftsmen were obliged to concentrate a certain amount of attention on the business of navigation, but they seized every moment they could spare from the task of guiding the raft, and, leaning on their oars, would devote it to contemplation. They too pointed out objects of interest, but only in their capacity as local guides, and in a monosyllabic manner in complete harmony with the occasion.
"Christian village," they would say, without looking round, pointing a thumb over their shoulders in the direction of a group of mud huts; or "Arab" when an encampment of black tents appeared on the bank. Hassan and the soldiers would respond by slowly turning their eyes in the particular direction; perhaps even going so far as to give vent to a sudden, sharp "Ha!" if the occasion was one of particular moment. Arten, however, would jump about the raft.
"A Christian village! Look, it is there; do you see, did you hear? A Christian village."
No one would answer him.
"Did you hear, Hassan?"
A minute of absolute stillness, and then Hassan's deep, deliberate voice, with no suggestion of impatience:
"I heard."