It was six o’clock of a fine morning, and the train was toiling up a precipitous grade to the spine of the mountain, where the down-slope would begin and air-brakes rule.  Pobloff looked about him.  He scratched his long nose, a characteristic gesture, and began wondering when coffee would be ready.  He pressed the bell.  The guard entered, a miserable bandit who bravely wore his peaked hat with green plumes a la Tyrol.  He spoke four tongues and many dialects; Pobloff calculated his monthly salary at forty roubles.

“No, Excellency, the coffee will be hot and refreshing at Kerb, where we arrive about seven.”  He cleared his throat, put out his hand, bowed low, and disappeared.  The composer grumbled.  Kerb!—­not until that wretched eyrie in the clouds!  And such coffee!  No matter.  Pobloff never felt in robuster health; his irritable nerves were calmed by a sound night’s sleep.  The air was fresher than down in the malarial valley, where stood the shining towers of Balak; he could see them pinked by the morning sun and low on the horizon.  All together he was glad....

Hello, this must be Kerb!  A moment later Pobloff bellowed for the guard; he had shattered the electric annunciator by his violence.  Then, not waiting to be served, he ran into the vestibule, and soon was on the station platform, inhaling huge drafts of air into his big chest.  Ah!  It was glorious up there.  What surprised him was the number of human beings clambering over the steps, running and gabbling like a lot of animals let loose from their cages.  The engineer beside his quivering machine enjoyed his morning coffee.  And there were many turbaned pagans and some veiled women mixed with the crowd.

The sparkling of bright colours and bizarre costumes did not disturb Pobloff, who had lived too long on anonymous borders, where Jew, Christian, Turk, Slav, African, and outlandish folk generally melted into a civilization which still puzzled ethnologists.

A negro, gorgeously clad, guarding closely a slim female, draped from head to foot in virginal white, attracted the musician.  The man’s face was monstrous in its suggestion of evil, and furthermore shocking, because his nose was a gaping hole.  Evidently a scimiter had performed this surgical operation, Pobloff mused.

The giant’s eyes offended him, they so stared, and threateningly.

Pobloff was not a coward.  After his adventure in Balak, he feared neither man nor devil, and he insolently returned the black fellow’s gaze.  They stood about a buffet and drank coffee.  The young woman—­her outlines were girlish—­did not touch anything; she turned her face in Pobloff’s direction, so he fancied, and spoke at intervals to her attendant.

“I must be a queer-looking bird to this Turk and her keeper—­probably some Georgian going to a rich Mussulman’s harem in company with his eunuch,” Pobloff repeated to himself.

A gong was banged.  Before its strident vibrations had ceased troubling the thin morning air, the train began to move slowly out of Kerb.  Pobloff again was glad.