"We have no fiddler to match with you," remarked Tokalji, "and the gaida[[1]] and the flute are not fit for real music. But our maidens can dance. Heh, girls, come out, shy ones! Let the strangers view your grace."
[[1]] Bagpipes.
They giggled amongst themselves, and swayed into a group that was as spontaneously instinct with rhythm as an old Greek temple frieze. But suddenly they split apart.
"Kara will dance," they cried. "Let Kara dance for the strangers."
And Kara floated into the circle of firelight like a spirit of the forest. She still wore only the scanty madder-red skirt and torn bodice. The cloud of her hair tumbled below her waist. Her tiny naked feet barely touched the ground. Slowly she whirled, and the Gipsy fiddles caught her time. A man with cymbals clashed an accompaniment. A flute whistled soprano. She increased the tempo; she varied her steps. She was a flower shrinking beneath the grass. She was a dove pursued by a falcon. She was a maiden deserted by her lover. She was a fairy hovering above the world.
We who watched her were breathless with the joy of the spectacle, and when she sank to the ground in a little pile of rags and hair as the music ended, I thought she must be worn out. But she bounded up at once, breathing regularly, radiating vitality.
"Now I will dance the Knife Dance!" she exclaimed. "Who will dance with me?" And before any could answer her, she seized a blazing stick from the fire, and ran around the circle waving it overhead until she came to where Nikka sat. "Ho, Giorgi Bordu, you who do not fear the knife, will you dance the Knife Dance with me?"
Every eye in the circle was fixed on Nikka, for, although I did not know it then, to have refused her invitation would have been a deadly insult, equivalent to a declaration of enmity toward her family and tribe. Similarly, acceptance of it amounted to an admission that he considered her favorably as a wife, without definitely committing him to matrimony.
Nikka did not hesitate. He stepped to her side. She slipped one arm around his waist, and with the other swung her torch in air until it showered sparks over the circle.
"Hi!" she cried.