Eleven o'clock. The candles had just been renewed in the coloured lanterns, and outside the Siamese town was asleep in the warm night. Inside one felt that trouble was brewing, that arms and fists were itching for a fight.
"Who are these fellows?" said one of the Americans, who spoke with a Marseilles accent. "Who are these Frenchies who come here to lay down the law? And that one who is with them"—this was meant for me—"the youngest of them all, who gives himself airs and seems to be in command?"
"That one," said Yves, with the air of one who did not deign to turn his head, "that one—any one who touches him will need to be a man!"
"That one!" said Barrada. "Do you want to know who he is? Wait a moment and we will tell you, without troubling him to speak for himself; and you will see, my boys, if that will enlighten you!"
Yves had already hurled at them his Chinese stool, which had burst the wall just above their heads, and Barrada, with a first blow, had knocked over two of them. The others overthrown in turn on top of the first two, all struggling on the ground. Kerboul began to belabour the mass unmercifully with his table, scattering over his enemies the debris of his fifteen glasses.
Then we heard outside the sounding of gongs and the ringing of bells, rustlings of silk and shrill little laughs of women.
And the dancing-girls entered. (The topmen had asked for dancing-girls.)
The fighting stopped when they appeared, for they were strange to see. Painted like Chinese idols, covered with gold and glistening stones, the eyes half-closed, looking like little white slits, they advanced into our midst with the smiles of dead women, holding their arms in the air and spreading out their slender fingers, the long nails of which were enclosed in golden sheaths.
At the same time came perfumes of balm and incense; little sticks had been set alight in a warming-dish, and an odorous, languorous smoke spread in a blue cloud.
The gongs sounded louder now and the phantoms began to dance, keeping their feet motionless, executing a kind of rhythmic movement of the stomach with twistings of the wrists. Always the same set smile, the same white mask of death. It seemed that the only life there was in them was concentrated in their rounded hips and arched stomachs which moved with lascivious wrigglings; and in the rigid arms, the disturbing outspread hands which writhed unceasingly.