The Lighted Match

As the kaleidoscope of the first dance sifted and shifted its pattern of

color, three men stood by the door, scanning the disguised figures with

watchful eyes.

One of the three was fantastically arrayed as a cannibal chief, in brown

fleshings, with cuffs upon his ankles, gaudy decorations about his neck,

and huge rings in nose and ears.

The second man was a Bedouin: a camel-driver of the Libyan Desert. From

the black horsehair circlet on his temples a turban-scarf fell to his

shoulders. He was wrapped in a brown cashmere cloak which dropped

domino-like to his ankles. Shaggy brows ran in an unbroken line from

temple to temple, masking his eyes, while a fierce mustache and beard

obliterated the contour of his lower face. His cheek-bones and forehead

showed, under some dye, as dark as leather, and as his gaze searchingly

raked the crowds, he fingered a string of Moslem prayer-beads.

The third man was conspicuous in ordinary dress. Save for the decoration

of the Order of Takavo, suspended by a crimson ribbon on his

shirt-front, and the Star of Galavia, on the left lapel of his coat,

there was no break in the black and white scheme of his evening clothes.

Von Ritz had told the truth. He was not disguised. He stood, his arms

folded on his breast, towering above the Fiji Islander, possibly a

quarter of an inch taller than the Bedouin. A half-amused smile lurked

in his steady eyes--the smile of unwavering brows and dispassionately

steady mouth-line.

The cannibal chief waved his hand. "Bright the lamps shone o'er fair

women and brave men!" he declaimed, in a disguised voice; then scowled

about him villainously, remembering that an affable quoting of Lord

Byron is incompatible with the qualities of a man-eating savage.

The Bedouin gravely inclined his head. "Allahu Akbar!" he responded,

in a soft voice.

Suddenly the caravan driver commenced a hurried and zigzag course across

the crowded floor. The eyes of Colonel Von Ritz indolently followed.

Through a low-silled window a girl had just entered, carrying herself

with the untrammeled freedom of some wild thing, erect, poised from the

waist, rhythmic in motion. Her walk was like the scansion of good verse.

The Bedouin caught the grace before the ensemble of costume met his eye.

It was in harmony.

She wore a silk skirt to the ankles, and about her waist and hips was

bound the yellow and red sash of the Spanish gipsy, tightly knotted, and

falling at its tasseled ends. Her arms were bare to the elbows, and gay

with bracelets; her hair fell from her forehead and temples, dropping

over her shoulders in two ribbon bound braids. A tall, gray-cowled monk,

whose military bearing gave the lie to his cassock, a Spanish grandee,

and a fool in motley saw her at the same moment and hurried to intercept

her, but with a slide which carried him a quarter of the way across the

floor the Bedouin arrived first, and before the others had come up he

was drifting away with her in the tide of the dancers.