Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-05-07
SVienna considers that I too am
he added.
Byronic.'


pect to rough it. There were rooms and pas
sages in plenty which could still boast roof
above them; but the ivable part of the
structure was limited and rudely furnished.
AIMS bed, an iron cot of military simplicity,
stood in a stone walled chamber which
would have satisfied the notions of an ascetic
monk. Her aunt's quarters and the Trus-
colts were as austere. The one apartment
that made pretensionS to comfort was the
low vaulted hall where they assembled for
dinner. 1t was too plain ever to have served
ceremonial uses,-Rodoslav said it was COM
monty called the guardroom,- with
candles set about its walls and it's great
hooded fireplace and darker inches banked
with yellow gorse and some unknown BIOS
som of famelike vividness, it took on an air
of festivity which, contrasted with the cells
where they had removed the dust of the
ride, was almost frivolous.
They were waited upon by the wife and
daughters of the steward, dressed, like the
men of the family, in the peasant costume
of the Herzegovina. The tableware was such
as might have been set before them in a
country inn; but the thick soup was savory,
the roast fowl cooked beyond reproach, the
salad of toothsome crispness, and the red
wine of body and bouquet that beguiled
the stockbroker-who declared he felt like
robber baron-to drink deep and defy
rheumatism to do its worst. In truth, the
spirits of the trenchermen who had once
tenanted the hall seemed to possess all of
them. The talk owed nothing to intellect.
Anything passed as wit. The prime affair
was the food and drink, which they con-
sumed with the honest JOY of eating of ruder
days.
This elemental mood outlasted the meal,
and still ruled them when strange chanting
drew them outdoors, and thence back under
the archway to the courtyard they had first
traversed. But this was no longer obscure.
Wherever the ancient torch holders still
chung to the decaying masonry famed lights.
Over against a stretch of gray wall, where
some Venetian master of the place had
sculptured the conquerng lion of Saint
Mark, was grouped the bright CARRIED family
of the steward. Soplaced, grave, statuesque,
they struck as weird note as the chant itself
The latter, intoned in deep bass by the old
shepherd, became at Rodoslav's coming a
duet which the wife shared, whereupon the
daughters darted to the fore and began to
dance. They kept their arms pinned as
closely to their sides as if they were of wood;
but nothing could be less wooden than the
young girls themselves. They were as grace
they were beyond question. AS brown eyed
as Rodoslav himself, yet darker skinned,
their kerchiefs and aprons as gay as gipsies',
their silver ornaments flashing in the uncer-
tain light. their glances and attitudes Sc
ductive compromise between shyness and in
vitation, they were at once of the Orient and
the West, barbaric and refined No music
save the curious antiphony of the chant
accompanied them. Nor did they need
more. They were music themselves. AS
they finished they kissed.
With shout the two young men leaped
forward to replace them. No feminine dance
this! Their daggers drawn, their eyes flash
ing dramatic defiance, they looked as if
nothing short of murder would Stake their
hate. Their faces became inhuman masks,
terrible to see; they sprang into the air as
if whipped on by demons; their fierce out
cries woke echoes which might have been
the voices of the slain Turks and Servians
who had made this spot their battle-ground.
This too was the Orient; but the Orient
Invested of languor, its savage heart un-
yelled. Then, abruptly, these dancers too
embraced and were done.
The guests applauded with the SNUG emo
ton of moderns who, caught out of them
selves for the moment by primitive passion,
are relieved to reflect that, after all, human
ity has mended its manners.
at is war dance of COurSe2" said Mrs