and drinking, but this time with growing wisdom, till
I was a new man, and then, paying my leaving with a wave of the hand to
the yellow-girted one who dispensed the common provender, I sauntered
on again, caring little or nothing which way the road went, and soon
across the current of my meditations a peal of laughter broke,
accompanied by the piping of a flute somewhere close at hand, and the
next minute I found myself amid a ring of light-hearted roisterers who
were linking hands for a dance to the music a curly-headed fellow was
making close by.

They made me join them! One rosey-faced damsel at the hither end of
the chain drew up to me, and, without a word, slipped her soft, baby
fingers into my hand; on the other side another came with melting eyes,
breath like a bed of violets, and banked-up fun puckering her dainty
mouth. What could I do but give her a hand as well? The flute began
to gurgle anew, like a drinking spout in spring-time, and away we went,
faster and faster each minute, the boys and girls swinging themselves
in time to the tune, and capering presently till their tender feet were
twinkling over the ground in gay confusion. Faster and faster till, as
the infection of the dance spread even to the outside groups, I capered
too. My word! if they could have seen me that night from the deck of
the old Carolina, how they would have laughed--sword swinging,
coat-tails flying--faster and faster, round and round we went, till
limbs could stand no more; the gasping piper blew himself quite out,
and the dance ended as abruptly as it commenced, the dancers melting
away to join others or casting themselves panting on the turf.

Certainly these Martian girls were blessed with an ingratiating
simplicity. My new friend of the violet-scented breath hung back a
little, then after looking at me demurely for a minute or two, like a
child that chooses a new playmate, came softly up, and, standing on
tiptoe, kissed me on the cheek. It was not unpleasant, so I turned the
other, whereon, guessing my meaning, without the smallest hesitation,
she reached up again, and pressed her pretty mouth to my bronzed skin a
second time. Then, with a little sigh of satisfaction, she ran an arm
through mine, saying, "Comrade, from what country have you come? I
never saw one quite like you before."

"From what country had I come?" Again the frown dropped down upon my
forehead. Was I dreaming--was I mad? Where indeed had I come