The throng on the floor was battling with flowers, drinking wine from carved bowls of coconut shell, and dancing indiscriminately. The masked men were robed in black and women shrouded in white, but the swinging lights of vivid color stained everything, made the scene shift and blur into fantasy. At one end of the room a huge circular table was loaded with food and drink, fruits and confections. The table was slowly revolving; half of its circumference was behind a partition--a kitchen where it was constantly being replenished with other dainties. The visitors found it difficult to keep their place on the pavilion steps. Masked men attacked the two girls with flowers; a black robed figure in mock politeness and humility begged one or the other of them to dance. A trio of girls tore George away, and then, at his resistance, left him abruptly. "The king," whispered Loto, with a gesture. At one end of the pavilion, on a small raised platform, the king sat smiling down upon the scene. He was robed in paneled cloth of rich, gaudy colors--a man of middle age whose long, dark hair was shot through with gray. The scene, with its confusion of shifting incidents, held too much for the visitors to see or to understand. Half an hour went by, with the merrymaking steadily increasing. Abruptly, the music stopped. The throng stopped in its tracks, waiting expectantly. The swinging colored lights died out; others took their place--pure blue-white, and motionless. A solemn bell tolled out over the silence; with almost one motion the masks and the robes were discarded. A woman's laugh rang out, carrying in it the very essence of abandonment. Then the music began again and the throng sprang back into motion. The riotous color had been supplied by the lights; now with the lights a blue-white, steady glare, it was the riotous color of the costumes themselves. Was it the Baghdad of the Ancients--manikins, with turbaned headdresses, and flowing, vivid draperies with the gleaming white of limbs beneath them? Or were these slave girls, with their wares displayed for the bidders in the market? Or these others, were they desert women, dancing with a pagan lust? Watching with the others, George's impressions were confused. Yet the thought came to him that this was modern beyond his time--decadence, not barbarism. Again Rogers murmured something, but his words were lost. A score of figures came leaping from the pavilion, scattering the small group of onlookers on its steps. Rogers recovered himself, turning to follow them with his gaze; white nymphs with flowing hair, and draperies of gauze that bellowed behind them as they ran for the moonlit beach and the surf. Loto, pulling at his father's arm, brought his attention back to the pavilion. Through it, the palm grove on the other side was visible. The bathing pool was now a turmoil of splashing figures--slim white shapes dove into it from the palm-lined banks.