We waited for that relief with impatience, though we
showed it not to those who pressed about us.
Time passed, and the noise deepened and the dancing became
more frantic. The dancers struck at one another as they leaped and
whirled, the sweat rolled from their bodies, and from their lips
came hoarse, animal-like cries. The fire, ever freshly fed, roared
and crackled, mocking the silent stars. The pines were bronze-red,
the woods beyond a dead black. All noises of marsh and forest
were lost in the scream of the pipes, the wild yelling, and the
beating of the drums.
From the ranks of the women beneath the reddened pines rose
shrill laughter and applause as they sat or knelt, bent forward,
watching the dancers. One girl alone watched not them, but us.
She stood somewhat back of her companions, one slim brown
hand touching the trunk of a tree, one brown foot advanced, her
attitude that of one who waits but for a signal to be gone. Now and
then she glanced impatiently at the wheeling figures, or at the old
men and the few warriors who took no part in the masque, but her
eyes always came back to us. She had been among the maidens
who danced before us earlier in the night; when they rested
beneath the trees she had gone away, and the night was much older
when I marked her again, coming out of the firelit distance back to
the fire and her dusky mates.
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