s and even their features were lost. Only their black eyes looked
out, gazing steadily into the darkness. A big man, with bare legs and a
spotted turban, came to the door of the cafe to invite them to go in;
but Mrs. Shiffney refused by a gesture.

"In a minute!" she said to Amor.

Amor spoke in Arabic to the attendant, who at once returned to the
coffee niche. Within the music never ceased, and now singing voices
alternated with the instruments. Mrs. Shiffney kept away from the door
and looked into the room through the window space next to it.

She saw a long and rather narrow chamber, with a paved floor, strewn
with clean straw mats, blue-green walls, and an orange-colored ceiling.
Close to the door was the coffee niche. At the opposite end of the room
five musicians were squatting, four in a semicircle facing the coffee
niche, the fifth alone, almost facing them. This fifth was Said Hitani,
the famous flute-player of Constantine--a man at this time sixty-three
years old. In front of him was a flat board, on which lay two freshly
rolled cigarettes and several cigarette ends. Now and then he took his
flute from his lips, replaced it with a lighted cigarette, smoked for a
moment, then swiftly renewed his strange love-song, playing with a
virile vigor as well as with airy daintiness and elaborate grace. Of his
companions, one played a violin, held upright by the left hand, with its
end resting on his stockinged foot; the second a species of large
guitar; the third a derbouka; and the fourth a tarah, or native
tambourine, ornamented with ten little discs of brass, which made a soft
clashing sound when shaken. On the left of the room, down one side,
squatted a row of Arabs with coffee-cups and cigarettes. By the door two
more were playing a game of draughts. And opposite to the windows, on an
Oriental rug, the long figure of Claude Heath was stretched out. He lay
with his hat tilted to the left over one temple, his cheek on his left
hand, listening intently to the music. On a wooden board beside him was
some music paper, and now and then with a stylograph he jotted down some
notes. He looked both emotional and thoughtful. Often his imaginative
eyes rested on the small and hunched-up figure of Said Hitani, dressed
in white, black, and gold, with a hood drawn over the head. Now and then
he looked toward the window, and it seemed to Mrs. Shiffney then that
his eyes met hers. But he saw nothing, except perhaps some Eastern
v