e chamberlain led me to him and
I bowed, and said that I gave thanks to the gods to whom he looked for
protection; and he said that he had heard my gods well spoken of by
those accustomed to pray but this he said only of courtesy, for he
knew not whom they were.

Singanee was simply dressed and only wore on his head a plain gold
band to keep his hair from falling over his forehead, the ends of the
gold were tied in the back with a bow of purple silk. But all his
queens wore crowns of great magnificence, though whether they were
crowned as the queens of Singanee or whether queens were attracted
there from the thrones of distant lands by the wonder of him and the
splendour I did not know.

All there wore silken robes of brilliant colours and the feet of all
were bare and very shapely for the custom of boots was unknown in
those regions. And when they saw that my big toes were deformed in
the manner of Europeans, turning inwards towards the others instead of
being straight, one or two asked sympathetically if an accident had
befallen me. And rather than tell them truly that deforming out big
toes was our custom and our pleasure I told them that I was under the
curse of a malignant god at whose feet I had neglected to offer
berries in infancy. And to some extent I justified myself, for
Convention is a god though his ways are evil; and had I told them the
truth I would not have been understood. They gave me a lady to dance
with who was of marvellous beauty, she gold me that her name was
Saranoora, a princess from the North, who had been sent as tribute to
the palace of Singanee. And partly she danced as Europeans dance and
partly as the fairies of the waste who lure, as legend has it, lost
travellers to their doom. And if I could get thirty heathen men out of
fantastic lands, with their long black hair and little elfin eyes and
instruments of music even unknown to Nebuchadnezzar the King; and if I
could make them play those tunes that I heard in the ivory palace on
some lawn, gentle reader, at evening near your house then you would
understand the beauty of Saranoora and the blaze of light and colour
in that stupendous hall and the lithesome movement of those mysterious
queens that danced round Singanee. Then gentle reader you would be
gentle no more but the thoughts that run like leopards over the far
free lands would come leaping into your head even were it London, yes,
even in London: you would rise up then and bea