And here, in the brilliant moonlight of the China Sea, she curled up cross-legged on the deck, all alone, and sounded the four futile strings of her moon-lute, and hummed to herself, in a still voice, old songs she had sung in Yian before the tragedy. She sang the tent-song called Tchinguiz. She sang Camel Bells and The Blue Bazaar,—children’s songs of the Yiort. She sang the ancient Khiounnou song called “The Saghalien”:
I
In the month of Saffar
Among the river-reeds
I saw two horsemen
Sitting on their steeds.
Tulugum!
Heitulum!
By the river-reeds
II
In the month of Saffar
A demon guards the ford.
Tokhta, my Lover!
Draw your shining sword!
Tulugum!
Heitulum!
Slay him with your sword!
III
In the month of Saffar
Among the water-weeds
I saw two horsemen
Fighting on their steeds.
Tulugum!
Heitulum!
How my lover bleeds!
IV
In the month of Saffar,
The Year I should have wed—
The Year of The Panther—
My lover lay dead,—
Tulugum!
Heitulum!
Dead without a head.
And songs like these—the one called “Keuke Mongol,” and an ancient air of the Tchortchas called “The Thirty Thousand Calamities,” and some Chinese boatmen’s songs which she had heard in Yian before the tragedy; these she hummed to herself there in the moonlight playing on her round-faced, short-necked lute of four strings.