"I've found out all about it," he said, cheerfully. "That chap"--he pointed to a figure below him--"told me a splendid yarn, and if you lite,"--he turned to me--"as they haven't done lighting up yet, and we can't dance till they finish, he could tell it again. I could translate, you know, for those who can't understand."
The innocent pride made me smile, until the Paris frock said, "I shall be so grateful if you will, Mr. Bertram," in a tone of soft friendliness which proclaimed her success and my failure. Both, however, I recognised were inevitable when I remembered that she was the wife of the lad's captain, a silent, bullet-headed Briton of whom he chose to make a hero--as boys will of older men who are not worthy to unlatch their shoes.
The figure rose and salaamed. It was that of a professional snake charmer, who had evidently come in hopes of being allowed to exhibit his skill: for his flat basket of snakes, slung to a bambu yoke, lay beside him.
"And it was about a woman, as I said," continued young Bertram, with the same innocent pride. "She was of his tribe--the snaky tribe, and so, of course, he knows about it all."
I had my doubts--the man looked a cunning scoundrel--but there was an awkward five minutes to fill up, so chairs and cushions were requisitioned, and on them and the marble steps we circled round to listen: the Paris dress, I noticed, choosing the latter, close to the translator.
He performed his task admirably, catching not only the meaning of the words but the rhythm of the snake charmer's voice, and so quickly, too, that the message for the East, and for the West, seemed one; yet it seemed to come from neither of the speakers.
"'Oh, God of the Battle! have mercy, have mercy, have mercy!' Such was her prayer to the Bright One, and this is the tale of it:
"Straight was her soul as the saraph who tempted Eve-mother, but crooked her body as snakes that deal death in the darkness--crookt in her childhood--crookt in the siege of the town by a spent shot which struck her, asleep in her cradle (the ball that you nurse on your knee, sahib--they found it beside her--her crushed limbs caressing the foe that destroyed her).
"She grew in this garden, a cripple, but fair still of face, and twice cursed in such gifts of beauty all barren and bitter--so bitter she veiled it away, hiding loveliness, hatefulness, both, from the eyes of the others: a soul stricken sore ere the battle began, yet insatiate of life, insatiate of blessing and cursing, insatiate of power. And, look you! she gained it! Most strangely, for fluttering through thickets like birds that are wounded and dragging herself like a snake to the blossoms, she threaded the jasmine to necklets and pressed out the roses to perfume, so giving to women uncrippled love-lures for the fathers of sons.
"Hid in the jasmine and screened by the trails of the roses, here, on this spot stood her chamber of charm for the secret distilling of itr, the silent repeating of ritual, the murmur of musical mantras.