"Wherefore then wear you this mask?" questioned Eckhardt with a severity in his tone, which seemed to stagger the girl.
"To please one greater than myself," the dancer replied with a mock bow, which produced a general outburst of laughter.
"Well then,—what do you want with me? Why do you shrink away?"
"Nay,—if you will not dance with me, I must look for another partner, for my mother grows impatient, as you may see by the twirling of her girdle," replied the girl pettishly. "I never cared who it was before,—and now simply because I like you, you hate me."
"You know it is the bite of the poison spider, for which the Tarantella is the antidote," spoke Eckhardt sternly.
Without replying the girl began her dance anew, flitting before her indifferent spectator in a maze of serpentine movements, at once alluring and bewildering to the eye. And to complete her mockery of his apathy, she continued to sing even during all the vagaries of her dance.
The crowd looked on with constantly increasing delight testifying its enthusiasm with occasional outbursts of joyful acclamation. Showers of silver, even gold, which fell in the circle, showed that the motley audience had not exhausted its resources in pious contributions, and the coins were greedily gathered in by the old woman and her comrades, while several nobles who had joined the concourse whispered to the hag, gave her rings and other rich pledges, all of which she accepted, repaying the donors with the less substantial coin of promise.
Suddenly the relentless fair one concluded her mazy circles by forming one with her nude arms over Eckhardt's head and inclining herself towards him, she whispered a few words into his ear. A lightning change seemed to come over the commander's countenance, intensifying its pallor, and struck with the impression she had produced, the Sicilian continued her importunities, nodding towards the old hag in the background, until Eckhardt half reluctantly, half wrathfully permitted himself to be drawn towards the group, of which the old woman formed the center. Pausing before her and whispering a few words into her ear, which caused the hag to glance up with a scowling leer, the girl took a small bronze mirror of oval shape from beneath her tunic and after breathing upon the surface, requested the old woman to proceed with the spell. The two Calabrians hurriedly gathered some dried leaves, which they stuffed under a tripod, that seemed to constitute the entire stock-in-trade of the group. After placing thereon a copper brazier, on which the old woman scattered some spices, the latter commanded the girl to hold the mirror over the fumes, which began to rise, after the two Calabrians had set the leaves on fire. The flames, which greedily licked them up, cast a strange illumination over the scene. The crowds attracted by the uncommon spectacle pushed nearer and nearer, while Eckhardt watched the process with an air of ill-disguised impatience and annoyance leaning upon his huge brand.
The old woman was mumbling some words in a strange unintelligible jargon and the Calabrians were replenishing the consumed leaves with a new supply they had gathered up, when Eckhardt's strange companion drawing closer, whispered to him:
"Now your wish! Think it—but do not speak!"