Now if I could only get acquainted with one of these lovely Fatimas,
and find out where the bar is--the bar of El Barr! Very good! Faith,
very good indeed!"
He laughed at his own witticism and blew perfumed smoke toward the
dim, golden roof. But now his attention was riveted by the silent
entrance of six dancing-girls, that instantly brought him to keen
observation.
Their dance, barefooted and with a minimum of veils, swayed into
sinuous beauty to the monotonous music of kettle-drums, long red
flutes and guitars of sand-tortoise shell with goat-skin heads--music
furnished by a dozen Arabs squatting on their hunkers half-way down the
hall. The gracious weaving of those lithe, white bodies of the girls
as they swayed from sunlit filigree to dim shadow, stirred even the
coldest heart among the Legionaries, that of the Master himself. As
for Bohannan, his cup of joy was brimming.
The dance ended, one of the girls sang with a little foreign accent,
very pleasing to the ears of the Master and Leclairs the famous chant
of Kaab el Ahbar:
A black tent, swayed by the desert wind
Is dearer to me, dearer to me
Than any palace of the city walls.
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