tly on a
bamboo rod set upright, which not a little amazed and even alarmed Fabio
and Valeria.... "Can it be that he is a magician?" the thought occurred
to her.--But when he set to calling out tame snakes from a covered
basket by whistling on a small flute,--when, wiggling their fangs, their
dark, flat heads made their appearance from beneath the motley stuff,
Valeria became frightened and begged Muzio to hide away those horrors as
quickly as possible.

At supper Muzio regaled his friends with wine of Shiraz from a round
flask with a long neck; extremely fragrant and thick, of a golden hue,
with greenish lights, it sparkled mysteriously when poured into the tiny
jasper cups. In taste it did not resemble European wines: it was very
sweet and spicy; and, quaffed slowly, in small sips, it produced in all
the limbs a sensation of agreeable drowsiness. Muzio made Fabio and
Valeria drink a cup apiece, and drank one himself. Bending over her cup,
he whispered something and shook his fingers. Valeria noticed this; but
as there was something strange and unprecedented in all Muzio's ways in
general, and in all his habits, she merely thought: "I wonder if he has
not accepted in India some new faith, or whether they have such customs
there?"--Then, after a brief pause, she asked him: "Had he continued to
occupy himself with music during the time of his journeys?"--In reply
Muzio ordered the Malay to bring him his Indian violin. It resembled
those of the present day, only, instead of four strings it had three; a
bluish snake-skin was stretched across its top, and the slender bow of
reed was semi-circular in form, and on its very tip glittered a pointed
diamond.

Muzio first played several melancholy airs,--which were, according to
his assertion, popular ballads,--strange and even savage to the Italian
ear; the sound of the metallic strings was plaintive and feeble. But
when Muzio began the last song, that same sound suddenly strengthened,
quivered powerfully and resonantly; the passionate melody poured forth
from beneath the broadly-handled bow,--poured forth with beautiful
undulations, like the snake which had covered the top of the violin with
its skin; and with so much fire, with so much triumphant joy did this
song beam and blaze that both Fabio and Valeria felt a tremor at their
heart, and the tears started to their eyes ... while Muzio, with his
head bent down and pressed against his violin, with pallid cheeks, and
brows co