Chapter 22 - Page 2

and self-possessed nauch girls of India than the impassioned dancers of Egypt.

When this was over, a stern voice was heard saying:

"Look while you may!"

The man who repeated the Emir's words -- a tall spare Tartar -- was he who carried out the sentences of Feofar-Khan against offenders. He had taken his place behind Michael, holding in his hand a broad curved sabre, one of those Damascene blades which are forged by the celebrated armourers of Karschi or Hissar.

Behind him guards were carrying a tripod supporting a chafing-dish filled with live coals. No smoke arose from this, but a light vapour surrounded it, due to the incineration of a certain aromatic and resinous substance which he had thrown on the surface.

The Persians were succeeded by another party of dancers, whom Michael recognised. The journalists also appeared to recognise them, for Blount said to his companion, "These are the Tsiganes of Nijni-Novgorod."

"No doubt of it," cried Alcide. "Their eyes, I imagine, bring more money to these spies than their legs."

In putting them down as agents in the Emir's service, Alcide Jolivet was, by all accounts, not mistaken.

In the first rank of the Tsiganes, Sangarre appeared, superb in her strange and picturesque costume, which set off still further her remarkable beauty.

Sangarre did not dance, but she stood as a statue in the midst of the performers, whose style of dancing was a combination of that of all those countries through which their race had passed -- Turkey, Bohemia, Egypt, Italy, and Spain. They were enlivened by the sound of cymbals, which clashed on their arms, and by the hollow sounds of the "daires" -- a sort of tambourine played with the fingers.

Sangarre, holding one of those daires, which she played between her hands, encouraged this troupe of veritable corybantes. A young Tsigane, of about fifteen years of age, then advanced. He held in his hand a "doutare," strings of which he made to vibrate by a simple movement of the nails. He sung. During the singing of each couplet, of very peculiar rhythm, a dancer took her position by him and remained there immovable, listening to him, but each time that the burden came from the lips of the young singer, she resumed her dance, dinning in his ears with her daire, and deafening him with the clashing of her cymbals. Then, after the last chorus, the remainder surrounded the Tsigane in the windings of their dance.

At that moment a shower of gold fell from the hands of the Emir and his train, and from the hands of his officers of all ranks; to the noise which the pieces made as they struck the cymbals of the dancers, being added the last murmurs of the doutares and tambourines.

"Lavish as robbers," said Alcide in the ear of his companion. And in fact it was the result of plunder which was falling; for, with the Tartar tomans and sequins, rained also Russian