the mythical voices of Lilith's hair. Like a musician
transposing upon a theme, she introduced new and elaborate motives of
her own until, at a sign from her, the music took up the principal theme
of the dance once more.

Captain Forest had seen practically all the great dancers of our time,
the Geisha and Nautch girls of the East, the Gypsies from Granada to St.
Petersburg, and the Bedouin women dance naked on the sands of the Sahara
beneath the stars while celebrating the sacred rites of their festivals,
but it soon became apparent that, all with few exceptions, were mere
novices in comparison, and stood in about the same relation to her as a
dilettante does to an artist.

She lifted the dance above the portrayal of sensuous emotion into
the realms of poetry. The wild spirit of the Gypsy, captivating,
fresh and invigorating and compelling as the winds of the mighty
Sierras and plains of the land she inhabited, enveloped and animated
her. The rushing, whirling climaxes up to which she worked were
startling--tremendous. The subtle, hypnotic influence and witchery of
her presence filled her entire surroundings and so held and dominated
the spectators that they were swept irresistibly along with her as the
rhythm of the dance increased. She swayed and enthralled the
imagination and emotions with a supremacy akin to that of music or the
noblest landscape. The mastery of every motion, every fleeting
expression but increased the impression she endeavored to convey--the
intensity of life, vibrant, joyous life.

The soft, rhythmic undulations of her graceful, sinuous body, vibrating
and pulsating with the ecstatic, rapturous emotion inspired by the music
and the dance, were a revelation of beauty. She became the living
expression of rhythm and grace as she paused for an instant before them,
scintillating and quivering like an aspen leaf, or glided and whirled
wraith-like, fragile and delicate and ethereal, wondrously lithe and
airy like films of gossamer or foam tossed up by the sea. The dance
itself seemed to fade into the background as their attention became
riveted upon her, and visions and vistas of life rose before the
imagination instead.

She danced with her soul, not with her feet; became the living
incarnation of the ancients' conception of plastic creation, enchanting,
intoxicating. They heard the myriad voices of spring, the voices of
birds and insects and the sound of falling waters; beheld the Elysian,
flower