e gate slept heavily; and though I asked of him permission to enter
the palace he only muttered a blessing on Singanee and fell asleep
again. It was evident that he had been drinking bak. Inside the ivory
hall I met with servitors who told me that any stranger was welcome
there that night, because they extolled the triumph of Singanee. And
they offered me bak to drink to commemorate the splendour but I did
not know its power nor whether a little or much prevailed over a man
so I said that I was under an oath to a god to drink nothing
beautiful; and they asked me if he could not be appeased by a prayer,
and I said, "In nowise," and went towards the dance; and they
commiserated me and abused that god bitterly, thinking to please me
thereby, and then they fell to drinking bak to the glory of Singanee.
Outside the curtains that hung before the dance there stood a
chamberlain and when I told him that though a stranger there, yet I
was well known to Mung and Sish and Kib, the gods of Pegana, whose
signs I made, he bade me ample welcome. Therefore I questioned him
about my clothes asking if they were not unsuitable to so august an
occasion and he swore by the spear that had slain the destroyer of
Perdondaris that Singanee would think it a shameful thing that any
stranger not unknown to the gods should enter the dancing hall
unsuitably clad; and therefore he led me to another room and took
silken robes out of an old sea-chest of black and seamy oak with green
copper hasps that were set with a few pale sapphires, and requested me
to choose a suitable robe. And I chose a bright green robe, with an
under-robe of light blue which was seen here and there, and a light
blue sword-belt. I also wore a cloak that was dark purple with two
thin strips of dark-blue along the border and a row of large dark
sapphires sewn along the purple between them; it hung down from my
shoulders behind me. Nor would the chamberlain of Singanee let me
take any less than this, for he said that not even a stranger, on that
night, could be allowed to stand in the way of his master's
munificence which he was pleased to exercise in honour of his victory.
As soon as I was attired we went to the dancing hall and the first
thing that I saw in that tall, scintillant chamber was the huge form
of Singanee standing among the dancers and the heads of the men no
higher than his waist. Bare were the huge arms that had held the
spear that had avenged Perdondaris. Th