quivering with excitement; and they seemed to know
by intuition that "The Sailor's Hornpipe" was written to be danced to,
and they danced to it accordingly a wild, furious, mad fandango in which
the extraordinary nature of the gambols of the performers was only
equalled by the ecstasy of their enjoyment. Such proceedings as these
could not of course long exist without the fame of them reaching the
ears of the king, and I had only given some three or four performances
when I was summoned to entertain his Majesty and his household, which I
did in the great square before the palace, my audience numbering quite
two thousand; Banda and his numerous family being seated in a huge
semicircle--of which I was the centre--in front of the palace, while the
rest of the audience filled the remaining portion of the square.

It was now that I first began to grow aware of the fact that there was a
certain member of the king's household who seemed to be taking rather
more interest in me than any one else had thus far manifested. She was
a girl of probably not more than sixteen years of age, but for all that
a woman, and, as compared with the rest, a very pretty woman too; quite
light in colour, exquisitely shaped, and with a most pleasing expression
of countenance, especially when she smiled, as she generally did when my
eyes happened to meet hers. I had seen her many times before, but had
never taken very particular notice of her until now that she appeared
determined to make me understand that she was friendly disposed toward
me. I endeavoured to ascertain who she was; but although I had
contrived to pick up a few words of the language, my ignorance of it was
still so great that I had experienced the utmost difficulty in making
myself understood, and all I could then learn about her was that her
name was Ama. It was not until later that I discovered her to be King
Banda's favourite daughter. And the discovery was made in a
sufficiently dramatic manner, as shall now be related.

It happened that one night, when, as now was frequently the case, I had
been summoned to entertain the king and his household by "obliging them
with a little music," I was playing some soft, plaintive air--I forget
what--when, chancing to glance toward Ama, who, seated on the ground on
the extreme left of the semicircle, was well within my range of vision,
I fancied I saw some moving object close to her left hand, which was
resting lightly on the ground.