Читать книгу Fombombo онлайн

87 страница из 96

A gong announcing almuerzo brought the drummer out of his reverie and moved him toward the breakfast table. As he went he shook off his mood, and resumed, as if he were putting on a suit of clothes, his quick American walk, his optimism, and his dashing business manner. As he moved briskly down the great hallway, a guard with a rifle directed him to the comidor.

The palace was divided into an east and a west wing, by a series of patios, and the breakfast-room proved to be a little place latticed off from one of the smaller patios. The lattice was overgrown with vines. In this retreat Strawbridge found a small basketry table laid with snowy linen, on which were oranges, sweet lemons, rolls, and coffee.

Thanks to Strawbridge's quick movements, he was the first person here. He sat down at the table and enjoyed the sunshine glinting at him through the vines. Through an end door of the breakfast-room he could see the kitchen. Its principal furnishing was a Venezuelan cooking-range. This was a great stone table punctured with little iron grates each holding a handful of charcoal fire. Above the table spread a big sheet-iron canopy, to convey away the gases and fumes. Ranged on the little fires were pots and pans and saucepans. At the farther end of the kitchen a wrinkled old negress was on her knees on the earthen floor, pouring boiling water into an old stocking leg filled with ground coffee. The beverage dripped out into a silver pot which sat on the ground in front of the crone. Beyond the negress, in the sunshine, stood a meat block with a machete stuck in it and a joint of meat lying on it. Around the meat the flies were so thick that they appeared to Strawbridge as a kind of wavering shadow over the block.