He gulped down the vile mixture of flat soda and bad brandy, turned his chair round to face the houses, and cocking his feet up on the plinth before the stairs which led up to Miss Leezie's balconies, settled himself to wait till the bazaar became lively. It would be more so than usual, of course, that evening, since the men had to return to barracks through it. It was only a question of waiting till some interest came into life.
One came very soon and quite unexpectedly.
This entrance to the balconies was partitioned off from the shops on either side, and consisted of a tiny, empty square, hung with a withered garland or two above the door which blocked the stairs.
This was closed; but it opened slowly, after a time, and a girl stepped out into the square, that was little bigger than a sentry-box, stepped out till the billowy curves of faded brocade about her feet almost touched those of No. 34 B Company.
He sate up and stared. This was something he had never seen before! This was the Arabian Nights!
It was, however, only Sobrai in the dress of a princess of the blood royal; softly orange and yellow in her trailing skirts, faintly purple and gold above, with a starred green veil hiding all but the gleam of sham jewels, the lustre of false pearls, and a finger-tip placed in warning where the lips should be.
He took the hint and stared silently, his blood racing through his veins, not from any suggestion of balconies and their like, but from curiosity, from excitement, from, in a way, the admiration which is the antithesis of balconies; for though he knew it not, Sobrai's dress and address were those of the virtuous woman entertaining her lawful owner.
So, with a salaam, whose grace had been caught from Noormahal, the girl slipped to the ground among her brocades, and No. 34 B Company instinctively slipped his feet from the plinth also.
There was silence for a second or two; then another hand stole out from the green and gold stars that were so shadowy, yet so clear. A hand clasping an hour-glass drum by its narrow waist, and twirling it gently so that the leaded silken tassels on its fringe did the duty of fingers, and sent that strange unrest throbbing out into the air.
But the voice that followed it robbed the sound of its usual character, and took the restlessness into a definite cause. For Sobrai's song was not of the bazaars. It was of the palaces. A bard's song of old days and dead kings, of war, and death, and victory. No. 34 B Company sate with his hands clenching his knees and listened almost stupidly, until, suddenly, a returning torch flung a great beam of glaring light into the shadows which almost hid the singer, and revealed a pair of black eyes amid the stars.