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He called himself Ramases, or some such name. We rode over a creaky bridge, Jan's horse refusing, so he went through the river, and out into the new road which is being made to Ipek.
After a while we climbed out again into the night, and went home. Ramases hung about shyly, and the woman explained that he had nowhere to sleep; so we arranged that she should house him also. Even as we poked our noses out of the door there was a promise of a fine day. Below us we could see the Pasha up and superintending the packing of his family and furniture.
We passed this high-road "in posse" and, the little horses stepping along, presently caught up a trail of donkeys, the proprietor of which, a friend of Ramases, had a face like a post-impressionist sculpture. We passed the donkeys and came to the usual sort of café, rough log hut, fire on floor but one of the women therein gave Jo her only apple decidedly we were away from Pod.
Jo wished to canter on, but he sternly forbade her, flipping her horse on the nose and driving it back when she tried to pass; for it would have damned his manly dignity for ever had a woman preceded him. Our first view of Ipek was of a forest of minarets shooting up from the orchards, not a house was to be seen. Ramases tried to make us lodge in a vague looking building.
We came down into Ipek suddenly, past the old orange towered monastery, which lies, its outer walls half buried, keeping the landslides at bay. Ramases, who had suddenly put on another air, flung his leg over the saddle he had previously been sitting sideways and twisted his moustache skywards.
This woman's heart knew long-forgotten things the thought kept beating up against him. There were cheek-bones, oddly high, that made him think involuntarily of the well-advertised Pharaoh, Ramases; a square, deep jaw; and an aquiline nose that gave the final touch of power.
"Nema." "Cheese?" crescendo. "Nema." "Bread?" fortissimo. "Nema." Despairing we swallowed three more luncheon tablets each and whined for tea. Ramases, who seemed to get along on tea alone, promised us a well-stocked café in an hour and a half. The second café was purely Albanian. We climbed up some rickety stairs into a room which had strange to relate a fireplace.
For here was a vista his imagination could realise; here he could know the comfort of solid ground his feet could touch. Gigantic Ramases, lying on his back beneath their shade and staring at the sky, similarly helped to steady his swaying thoughts. Imagination could deal with these.
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