The Dark Star

“I’m tired tonight,” she remarked.

“You dance beautifully.”

“Thank you.”

Sengoun, flushed and satisfied, came back with his gipsy partner when the music ceased.

“Now I hope we may have some more singing!” he exclaimed, as they seated themselves and a waiter filled their great, bubble-shaped glasses.

And he did sing at the top of his delightful voice when the balalaikas swept out into a ringing and familiar song, and the two gipsy girls sang, too – laughed and sang, holding the frosty goblets high in the sparkling light.

It was evident to Neeland that the song was a favourite one with Russians. Sengoun was quite overcome; they all touched goblets.

“Brava, my little Tziganes!” he said with happy emotion. “My little compatriots! My little tawny panthers of the Caucasus! What do you call yourselves in this bandbox of a country where two steps backward take you across any frontier?”

His dancing partner laughed till her sequins jingled from throat to ankle:

“They call us Fifi and Nini,” she replied. “Ask yourself why!”

“For example,” added the other girl, “we rise from this table and thank you. There is nothing further. C’est fini – c’est Fifi – Nini – comprenez-vous, Prince Erlik?”

“Hi! What?” exclaimed Sengoun. “I’m known, it appears, even to that devilish name of mine!”

Everybody laughed.

“After all,” he said, more soberly, “it’s a gipsy’s trade to know everybody and everything. Tiens!” He slapped a goldpiece on the table. “A kiss apiece against a louis that you don’t know my comrade’s name and nation!”

The girl called Nini laughed:

“We’re quite willing to kiss you, Prince Erlik, but a louis d’or is not a copper penny. And your comrade is American and his name is Tchames.”

“James!” exclaimed Sengoun.

“I said so – Tchames.”

“What else?”

“Nilan.”

“Neeland?”

“I said so.”

Sengoun placed the goldpiece in Nini’s hand and looked at Neeland with an uncomfortable laugh.

“I ought to know a gipsy, but they always astonish me, these Tziganes. Tell us some more, Nini–” He beckoned a waiter and pointed indignantly at the empty goblets.

The girls, resting their elbows on the tables, framed their faces with slim and dusky hands, and gazed at Sengoun out of humorous, half-veiled eyes.

“What do you wish to know, Prince Erlik?” they asked mockingly.

“Well, for example, is my country really mobilising?”

“Since the twenty-fifth.”

“Tiens! And old Papa Kaiser and the Clown Prince Footit – what do they say to that?”

“It must be stopped.”

“What! Sang dieu! We must stop mobilising against the Austrians? But we are not going to stop, you know, while Francis Joseph continues to pull faces at poor old Servian Peter!”

Neeland said:

“The evening paper has it that Austria is more reasonable and that the Servian affair can be arranged. There will be no war,” he added confidently.

“There will be war,” remarked Nini with a shrug of her bare, brown shoulders over which her hair and her gilded sequins fell in a bright mass.

“Why?” asked Neeland, smiling.

“Why? Because, for one thing, you have brought war into Europe!”

“Come, now! No mystery!” said Sengoun gaily. “Explain how my comrade has brought war into Europe, you little fraud!”

Nini looked at Neeland:

“What else except papers was in the box you lost?” she asked coolly.

Neeland, very red and uncomfortable, gazed back at the girl without replying; and she laughed at him, showing her white teeth.

“You brought the Yellow Devil into Europe, M’sieu Nilan! Erlik, the Yellow Demon. When he travels there is unrest. Where he rests there is war!”

“You’re very clever,” retorted Neeland, quite out of countenance.

“Yes, we are,” said Fifi, with her quick smile. “And who but M’sieu Nilan should admit it?”

“Very clever,” repeated Neeland, still amazed and profoundly uneasy. “But this Yellow Devil you say I brought into Europe must have been resting in America, then. And, if so, why is there no war there?”

“There would have been – with Mexico. You brought the Yellow Demon here, but just in time!”

“All right. Grant that, then. But – perhaps he was a long time resting in America. What about that, pretty gipsy?”

The girl shrugged again:

“Is your memory so poor, M’sieu Nilan? What has your country done but fight since Erlik rested among your people? You fought in Samoa; in Hawaii; your warships went to Chile, to Brazil, to San Domingo; the blood of your soldiers and sailors was shed in Hayti, in Cuba, in the Philippines, in China–”

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Neeland. “That girl is dead right!”

Sengoun threw back his handsome head and laughed without restraint; and the gipsies laughed, too, their beautiful eyes and teeth flashing under their black cascades of unbound hair.