maneuvre the cutting edge grazed her breast without even abrading
the skin.

When the girl finished her act the guests applauded vigorously. The two
old men flung their tunics around her, while her malicious, boyish face
peeped forth and sniffed the foods and sweetmeats.

"But, Sonnica," protested Lachares, "when did the beautiful Greek ever
forget her friends like this? Athenian, you have maddened her with your
love; now intercede for us, and ask that the daughters of Gades present
themselves quickly!"

Sonnica appeared to be sleeping upon Actaeon's breast, spellbound by his
close, warm, throbbing heart.

"Bid them enter----let my guests do what they wish----only leave us in
peace!"

Footsteps, giggling, and whispering were heard in the peristyle, and the
Gaditanian dancers entered the triclinium, crowding each other like a
stampeding flock.

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