“She’s a beauty!” whispered Dirk.
His terrible eyes seemed to call Bimi Tal as they had called other women. Mesmerism—what was it? Singing, she pranced toward the den of potted palms where we were sitting. Her skirt rustled like the marshes. Wind of summer.
Little searchlights, playing colored lights on Bimi Tal, grew darker. Red and violet deepened to brown and green. Still the hot stars above us. In that artificial paper Palm Grove, with the silky puffy women and the beefsteak-guzzling men looking stupidly, was born the mystery of the great savannahs.
Dirk’s head nodding. Dirk’s thin lips slowly opening. Dirk’s golden eyes glimmering. Tat! tat! tat! Dirk’s steady fingers.
The great savannahs and the tropic marshes. Bimi Tal dancing. Stealthily, the music softened from that brass and cymbal tune. It rustled. It crawled. It reared fanged heads.
For a little while I did not see Bimi Tal nor Dirk, but the steamy Everglades. Winter noon. Grass leaves silvered by sea-wind; puddles stirring at the roots of the grasses. Silence booming like the loud silence of death.
Bimi Tal was dancing her snake dance. Dirk’s lips quivered.
The marsh wind makes a little stir (it is the whispering flute.) The marsh waters make a little moan (it is the violin).
III.
WHERE was the soul of Bimi Tal dwelling that tropic winter so many years ago? On her mother’s breast, a little bud of love, crooned over with the song of sleep? Or meshed in bleeding poinsettia or rose? Or a soul yet unborn?