The second man was a Bedouin:  a camel-driver of the Libyan Desert.  From the black horsehair circlet on his temples a turban-scarf fell to his shoulders.  He was wrapped in a brown cashmere cloak which dropped domino-like to his ankles.  Shaggy brows ran in an unbroken line from temple to temple, masking his eyes, while a fierce mustache and beard obliterated the contour of his lower face.  His cheek-bones and forehead showed, under some dye, as dark as leather, and as his gaze searchingly raked the crowds, he fingered a string of Moslem prayer-beads.

The third man was conspicuous in ordinary dress.  Save for the decoration of the Order of Takavo, suspended by a crimson ribbon on his shirt-front, and the Star of Galavia, on the left lapel of his coat, there was no break in the black and white scheme of his evening clothes.  Von Ritz had told the truth.  He was not disguised.  He stood, his arms folded on his breast, towering above the Fiji Islander, possibly a quarter of an inch taller than the Bedouin.  A half-amused smile lurked in his steady eyes—­the smile of unwavering brows and dispassionately steady mouth-line.

The cannibal chief waved his hand.  “Bright the lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men!” he declaimed, in a disguised voice; then scowled about him villainously, remembering that an affable quoting of Lord Byron is incompatible with the qualities of a man-eating savage.

The Bedouin gravely inclined his head. “Allahu Akbar!” he responded, in a soft voice.

Suddenly the caravan driver commenced a hurried and zigzag course across the crowded floor.  The eyes of Colonel Von Ritz indolently followed.

Through a low-silled window a girl had just entered, carrying herself with the untrammeled freedom of some wild thing, erect, poised from the waist, rhythmic in motion.  Her walk was like the scansion of good verse.  The Bedouin caught the grace before the ensemble of costume met his eye.  It was in harmony.

She wore a silk skirt to the ankles, and about her waist and hips was bound the yellow and red sash of the Spanish gipsy, tightly knotted, and falling at its tasseled ends.  Her arms were bare to the elbows, and gay with bracelets; her hair fell from her forehead and temples, dropping over her shoulders in two ribbon bound braids.  A tall, gray-cowled monk, whose military bearing gave the lie to his cassock, a Spanish grandee, and a fool in motley saw her at the same moment and hurried to intercept her, but with a slide which carried him a quarter of the way across the floor the Bedouin arrived first, and before the others had come up he was drifting away with her in the tide of the dancers.

“Allah is good to me—­Flamencine,” whispered the camel-driver as he drew her close to avoid a careless dancer.

“Why, Flamencine?” demanded a carefully altered voice, from which, however, the music had not been eliminated.

“Don’t you remember?” The Arab stole a covert, identifying glance down at the tip of one ear which showed under its masking of brown hair—­an ear that looked as though it were chiseled from the pink coral of Capri.  He quoted: