A dark figure by the cypress pool laughed and shrugged.  He was a singular figure, this man by the pool, with a hint of the Orient in his garb.  His robe was of black, with startling and unexpected flashes of scarlet lining when he walked.  Black chains clanked drearily about his waist and wrists.  There was a cunningly concealed light in his filmy turban which gave it the singular appearance of a dark cloud lighted by an inner fire.  As he wandered about with clanking chains, he played strange music upon a polished thing of hollow bones.  Sometimes the music laughed and wooed when eyes were kind; sometimes when eyes were over-daring it was subtly impudent and eloquent.  Sometimes it was so unspeakably weird and melancholy that along with the clanking chains and the strangely luminous turban, many a careless stroller turned and stared.  So did a slender, turbaned Seminole chief with a minstrel at his heels.

It was upon this picturesque young Seminole that the eyes of the Greek by the hibiscus lingered longest, but the eyes of the Bedouin scanned every line of the minstrel’s ragged corduroy with grim amusement.

“A romantic garb, by Allah!” said the Bedouin dryly.

“It has served its purpose,” reminded the Greek sombrely.  And laughed with relish.

For the Seminole chief had fled perversely through the lantern-lit trees, her soft, mocking laughter proclaiming her sex and her mood.

“And still he follows!” boomed the Bedouin.  “With or without the music-machine, he is consistently fatuous.”

The man with the luminous turban spoke suddenly to a girl in trailing satin with a muff of flowers in her hand.  Shoulders and throat gleamed superbly above the line of golden satin; there were flashing topazes in her hair and about her throat; and the slender, arched foot in the satin slipper was small and finely moulded.

“Tell me,” he begged insistently, “who you are!  You’ve grace and poise enough for a dozen women.  And who taught you how to walk?  Few women know how.”

The girl, with a delicate air of hauteur, flung back her head imperiously and turned away.

“And you’ve wonderful eyes—­black and wistful and tragic and beautiful!” persisted the man impudently.  “Wonderful, sparkling lady of gold and black, tell me who you are!”

“Who,” said the girl gravely in a clear, rich contralto, “who are you?”

The man laughed but his eyes lingered on the firm, proud scarlet lips and the small even teeth.

“Call me the ‘Black Palmer,’” said he.  “There’s a tremendous significance in my rig to be sure, but it’s only for one man.”

“What,” asked the girl seriously, “is a palmer?”

Mystified the Black Palmer stared.

“You honestly mean that you don’t know?”

“I speak ever the truth,” said the proud scarlet lips below the golden mask.  “When I ask, I mean that I do not know.”