a dancer took her position by him and remained there immovable,
listening to him, but each time that the burden came from the lips of
the young singer, she resumed her dance, dinning in his ears with her
daire, and deafening him with the clashing of her cymbals. Then, after
the last chorus, the remainder surrounded the Tsigane in the windings of
their dance.

At that moment a shower of gold fell from the hands of the Emir and his
train, and from the hands of his officers of all ranks; to the noise
which the pieces made as they struck the cymbals of the dancers, being
added the last murmurs of the doutares and tambourines.

"Lavish as robbers," said Alcide in the ear of his companion. And in
fact it was the result of plunder which was falling; for, with the
Tartar tomans and sequins, rained also Russian ducats and roubles.

Then silence followed for an instant, and the voice of the executioner,
who laid his hand on Michael's shoulder, once more pronounced the words,
which this repetition rendered more and more sinister:

"Look while you may"

But this time Alcide observed that the executioner no longer held the
saber bare in his hand.

Meanwhile the sun had sunk behind the horizon. A semi-obscurity began
to envelop the plain. The mass of cedars and pines became blacker and
blacker, and the waters of the Tom, totally obscured in the distance,
mingled with the approaching shadows.

But at that instant several hundreds of slaves, bearing lighted torches,
entered the square. Led by Sangarre, Tsiganes and Persians reappeared
before the Emir's throne, and showed off, by the contrast, their dances
of styles so different. The instruments of the Tartar orchestra sounded
forth in harmony still more savage, accompanied by the guttural cries of
the singers. The kites, which had fallen to the ground, once more winged
their way into the sky, each bearing a parti-colored lantern, and under
a fresher breeze their harps vibrated with intenser sound in the midst
of the aerial illumination.

Then a squadron of Tartars, in their brilliant uniforms, mingled in
the dances, whose wild fury was increasing rapidly, and then began a
performance which produced a very strange effect. Soldiers came on the
ground, armed with bare sabers and long pistols, and, as they executed
dances, they made the air re-echo with the sudden detonations of their
firearms, which immediately set going the rumbling of the tambourines,
and grumblings of the dair