The courtyard was a litter of cornstalks, almost entirely covered with a roof of woven branches; evidently it was the home of flocks now out in the rain attended by a shepherd cutting leaves for them. An arched doorway opened into the first floor of the house, where we saw a pensive donkey gazing profoundly upon the liquid gray weather.
Obviously this was a rich house, and we followed Sadiri Luka expectantly, up the stone stairs and down a long hall mysterious with closed doors, to a large room full of color. There were rugs on the stone floor, rugs on the stone walls, floor cushions covered with rugs in front of the fireplace. There was no other furniture save a row of old rifles on a wall. Their slender four-foot-long barrels were inlaid with silver, their curved thin butts were of silver chased and enameled, their triggers were intricate flint-lock affairs, and we tore our eyes from them with a wrench, to reply with proper courteousness to the welcome of our host.
While he made the coffee a woman came quietly through the door beside the fireplace and greeted us with poised and gracious dignity—one of those many beautiful Albanian women who, because they were so poised and so silent, remain a background for all our memories of the mountains, more mysterious behind their level eyes and courteous phrases than Turkish women behind their veils.
Sitting on the cushions, we drank the coffee and the rakejia, from time to time responding to the greeting of other guests come to meet us. Perolli was quiet, fallen into one of the moods which we had learned not to interrupt with requests for interpreting. There was constraint in the atmosphere, and when, presently, he fell into low-voiced talk with Sadiri Luka, we tactfully engaged the others in such conversation as occurred to us. I forget how it happened that we first mentioned the ora. There were, of course, ora in Thethis, we were told, but no one remembered any news of interest concerning them. Then, prompted by the incessant sound of rushing water, we inquired if there were ora of the waters as well as of the forests.
“The old men know these things,” said a handsome youth, somewhat bored. He was a traveled young man; he had been in Budapest and Bucharest, and spoke their languages as well as German and Italian, and—from wherever gotten—he wore an American army shirt. Ora did not interest him. “Old man,” said he, politely, turning to an aged chief beside him, “what do you know of the water ora?”
The old man took the amber mouthpiece of his long cigarette holder from his shrunken lips and blew a reflective cloud of smoke. The alert Rexh produced my notebook and fountain pen from his pajama pocket, laid them beside me, and leaned forward, attentive.
CHAPTER X
THE WATER ORA OF MALI SHARIT—THE COMING OF THE TRIBES TO EUROPE BEFORE THE SEAS WERE BORN, AND HOW THE FIRST GREEKS CAME IN BOATS—WHY ALEXANDER THE GREAT WAS BORN IN EMADHIJA, AND OF HIS JOURNEY TO MACEDONIA—THE SAD HOUSE OF KOL MARKU.
“The water ora were an ancient race,” said the old man. “They were here before the ora of the forests. I do not think there are very many of them left, and no man has seen them in my time, nor in the time of my father. But very long ago, before the tribes of Shala, Shoshi, and Pultit were founded by the three brothers from the land that is now the Merdite country, there was a man of their tribe who caught a water ora. It is a very old song, and much of it has been forgotten, but the man was a man from the Mali Sharit, and by three days he missed becoming the king of the world. In my father’s time the thing that happened to him was still sung. I heard that song when I was a child, but I have forgotten the words of it. I remember only the thing that happened.
“The man of Mali Sharit went every day to the wood on the mountain, and in that wood was a lake, small, but like the sky in clearness. I do not know why he went; he was probably laying by green leaves to feed his sheep in the winter. But it happened that one day while he worked he saw a very beautiful girl lift her head from that clear water and look carefully in every direction. He was hidden by low leaves and she did not see him. When she saw no one, she came from the water into the sunshine, and danced in the sunshine. When she had danced until she wished no longer to dance, she went again into the water. The man of Mali Sharit went to the pool and looked into it, and it was like the sky in clearness.