Part 17 (2/2)

There were forty or fifty people there, drinking coffee and sirops and filling the air with the fumes of latakia Most of them were Turks in European clothes and the fez, but there were some German officers and what looked like German civilians-Army Service Corps clerks, probably, and mechanics fro at the piano, and there were several shrill females with the officers Peter and I sat down modestly in the nearest corner, where old Kuprasso saw us and sent us coffee A girl who looked like a Jewess came over to us and talked French, but I shook irl ca of ta I have seen native wo better in a Moza, a siolden hair and rainbows, and the Germans present applauded The place was so tinselly and co, it ht be a vulgar little dancing-hall, for us it was as perilous as a brigands' den

Peter did not share my mood He was quite interested in it, as he was interested in everything new He had a genius for living in the moment

I remember there was a drop-scene on which was daubed a blue lake with very green hills in the distance As the tobacco s, this tawdry picture began toout of aat a lovely suer I seerance of blossom from the islands And then I became aware that a queer scent had stolen into the at at both ends to warm the room, and the thin s a powder in the flames, for suddenly the place became very quiet The fiddles still sounded, but far away like an echo The lights went down, all but a circle on the stage, and into that circle stepped my enemy of the skin cap

He had three others with him I heard a whisper behind me, and the words were those which Kuprasso had used the day before These bedlamites were called the Coreat dancing

I hoped to goodness they would not see us, for they had fairly given me the horrors Peter felt the same, and we both made ourselves very small in that dark corner But the newco the pavilion changed froo or Paris, to a place of mystery-yes, and of beauty It became the Garden-House of Suliman the Red, whoever that sportsman may have been Sandy had said that the ends of the earth converged there, and he had been right I lost all consciousness of hbours-stout Gerures leaping in a circle of light, figures that caic

The leader flung soht flared up He eaving circles, and he was singing soh, whilst his companions made a chorus with their deep monotone I can't tell you what the dance was I had seen the Russian ballet just before the war, and one of thewas the least part of it It was neither sound norfar more potent In an instant I found ers, and looking at a world all young and fresh and beautiful The gaudy drop-scene had vanished It was a as looking fro at the finest landscape on earth, lit by the pure clean light of

It seemed to be part of the veld, but like no veld I had ever seen It ider and wilder andat ht-heartedness which only a boy knows in the dawning of his days I had no longer any fear of these ht me into fairyland

Then slowly from the silence there distilled drops ofway into a cup, each the essential quality of pure sound We, with our elaborate harle notes The African natives know it, and I re me that the Greeks had the same art Those silver bells broke out of infinite space, so exquisite and perfect that no mortal words could have been fitted to the stars ether

Slowly, very slowly, it changed The glow passed frory red Bit by bit the notes spun together till they had made a harain of the skin-clad dancers beckoning out of their circle

There was nonow All the daintiness and youth had fled, and passion was beating the air-terrible, savage passion, which belonged neither to day nor night, life nor death, but to the half-world between them I suddenly felt the dancers as monstrous, inhuman, devilish The thick scents that floated fro of new-shed blood Cries broke froer and lust and terror I heard a woht hold of my arm

I now realized that these Co in the world to fear Rasta and Stumm seemed feeble si out of was changed to a prison wall-I could see the mortar between theout their ene eyes of their leader looking foraudibly beside me, and I could have choked him His infernal chatter would reveal us, for it seemed to ic-workers

Then suddenly the spell was broken The door was flung open and a great gust of icy wind swirled through the hall, driving clouds of ashes froan inside For a moment it was quite dark, and then soe It revealed nothing but the common squalor of a low saloon-white faces, sleepy eyes, and frowsy heads The drop-piece was there in all its tawdriness

The Coone But at the door stoodway off uards,' and I heard hi was desperately acute That is often the hen you suddenly coic Turk and German tumbled over each other, while Kuprasso wailed and wept No one seemed to stop them, and then I saw the reason Those Guards had come for us This must be Stumm at last The authorities had tracked us down, and it was all up with Peter and me

A sudden revulsion leaves a reatly We were done, and there was an end of it It was Kis for it but to subht of escape or resistance The game was utterly and absolutely over

A eant pointed to us and said soot heavily to our feet and stumbled towards them With one on each side of us we crossed the yard, walked through the dark passage and the empty shop, and out into the snowy street There was a closed carriage waiting which they et into It looked exactly like the Black Maria

Both of us sat still, like truant schoolboys, with our hands on our knees I didn't knohere I was going and I didn't care We seelare of lighted streets

'This is the end of it, Peter,' I said

'Ja, Cornelis,' he replied, and that was all our talk

By and by-hours later it seeot out, to find ourselves in a courtyard with a huge dark building around The prison, I guessed, and I wondered if they would give us blankets, for it was perishi+ng cold

We entered a door, and found ourselves in a big stone hall It was quite warm, which made me more hopeful about our cells A man in some kind of uniform pointed to the staircase, up which we plodded wearily My mind was too blank to take clear impressions, or in any way to forecast the future Another warder e till we halted at a door He stood aside and motioned us to enter