A double row of broad, sharp swords was placed along the floor by a group of slaves, so that the contortionist might show her greatest feat. The flutists began to play a slow, solemn melody, and the contortionist, again standing head downward, began to walk between the swords without disturbing them or touching their sharp edges. The guests, cup in hand, followed her course anxiously through the forest of keen steel blades, which at her slightest wavering would penetrate her body. She paused near a sword, extended one arm, and sustaining herself on a single hand she bent the elbow until she kissed the floor; then she stiffened the muscles, raising herself back to her first position, and throughout this whole maneuvre the cutting edge grazed her breast without even abrading the skin.
When the girl finished her act the guests applauded vigorously. The two old men flung their tunics around her, while her malicious, boyish face peeped forth and sniffed the foods and sweetmeats.
"But, Sónnica," protested Lachares, "when did the beautiful Greek ever forget her friends like this? Athenian, you have maddened her with your love; now intercede for us, and ask that the daughters of Gades present themselves quickly!"
Sónnica appeared to be sleeping upon Actæon's breast, spellbound by his close, warm, throbbing heart.
"Bid them enter——let my guests do what they wish——only leave us in peace!"
Footsteps, giggling, and whispering were heard in the peristyle, and the Gaditanian dancers entered the triclinium, crowding each other like a stampeding flock.
They were girls of small stature, with supple, agile limbs; their skin a pale amber, their eyes large and luminous; their hair black; their bodies floating in vapory veils, alluring and deceptive in their semi-transparency. They wore on their breasts and on their arms and ankles strands of coins and amulets which rung with merry tinkle at the slightest movement, and they stared boldly at the guests like a flock accustomed to such feasts, who traveled from banquet to banquet, seeing men only in their hours of intoxication.
The ruler of the band, a wrinkled, parchment-faced old man with an insolent stare, was dressed like them in feminine veils, his cheeks painted, his eyes encircled with black, having great hoops in his ears, and a cynical leer on his vermilion lips, ready for trade in the most infamous traffic.
Euphobias, indifferent to the charms of the dancing girls, looked at him with amazement, wondering to what sex belonged those skeleton arms peeping from beneath the veils, painted white, and weighted down with jewels.
"Brother, are you a man or a woman?" the philosopher gravely enquired.