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. "I am the father of all these flowers," replied the eunuch with a squeaking voice, showing as he smiled his repulsive, toothless gums. Three of the women, squatting on the floor, began to fillip their castanets with lively clacking, while another beat with her hands on a globe-bottomed timbrel tucked under her left arm. The eunuch rapped on the floor with his staff, and instantly four pairs of dancers whisked into the centre of the triclinium, and began to swing to the sound of clamorous barbaric music played by their companions. They danced with stately step, holding themselves majestically erect, spreading their arms as if swimming in space, their brown bodies wheeling in slow spirals, seeming to float on the waves of transparent foam which enwrapped them. Gradually their movements accelerated; they gracefully extended their bodies, elevating their firm chests, outlining their contours among the veils--contortions in which the trunk revolved on the hips, a whirl of forms enclosed in white and floating drapery, which as it flew into a thousand folds with voluptuous undulations, fanned up the flames of the lamps. Suddenly, at a signal from the old crone, the music stopped, and the dancing ceased. "More! More!" shouted the guests, sitting up in their couches with excitement. It was merely a halt to change the time and to evoke applause by taking a brief rest. The music assumed a gay and noisy rhythm; the old eunuch marked time on the floor with the beating staff; he uttered a prolonged lament, sad, yet with a mild sweetness, which did not seem to come from his infected mouth; and then followed slow dreamy strophes of love with words of double meanings, which acted like aphrodisiacs, and were greeted with a roar of enthusiasm.