"'Yes, my friend, the bayaderes—neither more nor less.'
"'Bayaderes returning from Egypt, and on passage through the Red Sea?
I do not understand.'
"Then write to the Captain for an explanation. I have had to content myself with what he told me. His passengers are bayaderes; not those spurious dancing girls whom the waiters in any café in Bombay, Calcutta, or Singapore can induce to disport themselves before strangers for a guinea or so, but genuine bayaderes, brought up by the priests and nurtured in the temple. They had been to Europe in the suite of a Rajah, who died suddenly at Cairo, and they did not deem it prudent to continue their journey, more especially as their resources had disappeared with the Rajah. Our Captain had offered to take them back to their own country, but as his contract with us precluded him from taking other passengers, he exacted from them an engagement that they would not show themselves outside their little cell.
"'The unfortunate creatures would have been suffocated in that hole,'
I exclaimed.
"'They feel the heat so little,' replied the Captain, 'that only yesterday they asked me for some extra wraps. Just consider, we are at this moment in 20 degrees north latitude, and they were born close to the equator. What these dancing girls want is exercise and activity.'
"I began to reflect once more. Suppose I were to take a mean advantage of the situation—if in exchange for a little ease and liberty, these sweet creatures would consent to initiate me into the secret of their mysterious dances—if, not content with studying the customs of Africa, I might, whilst grazing the Asiatic coast, get an idea of the manners of India!
"I sounded the Captain on the subject. He remonstrated at once.
"'Bayaderes dance in public? It is not to be thought of. They belong to a religious sect.'
"'Captain,' said I, interrupting him, 'we may possibly shut our eyes to any little irregularity which you have committed in taking these passengers on board in defiance or your agreement with us, if, on your part, you will contrive to arrange this little entertainment, this novel spectacle for us. Think it over. In our religion we can enter into an arrangement with Heaven itself—surely you can do as much with the bayaderes.'
"My glowing account and my projected evening's entertainment made de Morin and Delange as excited as I was; but, of course, we could not do anything without the consent of Madame de Guéran, a consent which she was most graciously pleased to accord. She, however, declined to be present, not from any motives of prudery, but because, as she herself said, the presence of ladies generally acted as a restraint in the case of such exhibitions. She, nevertheless, instructed us to inform the bayaderes that the deck of the vessel was as free to them as to ourselves.