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The voices of the musicians, who have for the latter part of the time been giving forth a drawling chorus, cease, but the din of the tambourines continues, while the performer dances wildly, till he stops before the lad on the ground, and takes from his mouth first one date and then another, which the lad is told to eat, and does so, the on-lookers fully convinced that they were transformed from the rag.
Parson Jack discreetly shut the door, and fell to studying the not over-clean drawing-room, which was tricked out with muslin draperies, cheap Japanese fans, photographs mostly of officers in the uniform of the Royal Marines and such artistic trifles as painted tambourines, sabots, drain-pipes, and milking-stools.
Music too was there; the shrill peal of the Median trumpet, and soft tone of the Phrygian flute; the Jewish cymbal and harp, Paphlagonian tambourines and the stringed instruments of Ionia; Syrian kettle-drums and cymbals, the shells and drums of the Arians from the mouth of the Indus, and the loud notes of the Bactrian battle-trumpets.
Some had pipes and some had lutes and some had tambourines, and all were singing as loud as they could and making as much noise as they might, and when they came into the open space hard by the fountain they paused for a while in their progress, and broke into as lively a morris-dance as ever I had seen skipped.
This time, also, the instruments are of another class, two or three of the plainest sheep-skin tambourines with two gut strings across the centre under the parchment, which gives them a peculiar twanging sound; and a couple of reeds, mere canes pierced with holes, each provided with a mouthpiece made of half an inch of flattened reed.
Blast after blast rang out from the trumpets, filling the air with festive defiance; cheerful bridal songs came nearer and nearer to the listeners, the shrill chorus of boys and maidens sounding above the deeper and stronger chant of youths and men of all ages; flutes piped a gay invitation to gladness; the dull roar of drums muttered like the distant waves in time to a march, broken by the clang of cymbals and the tinkle of bells hung around tambourines held high by girlish hands which struck, rattled and waved them above their flowing curls; lute players discoursed sweet music on the strings; and as this vast tide of mingled tones came closer, behind it there was still more music and more song.
Their scouts had doubtless given them amazing details about his army: the rank and file were frantic mad women crowned with ivy, clad in fawn- skins, with little pikes that had no steel about them, but were ivy-wreathed like themselves, and toy bucklers that tinkled at a touch; they took the tambourines for shields, you see; and then there were a few bumpkins among them, stark naked, who danced wildly, and had tails, and horns like a new-born kid's.
'All of a sudden, loud clamour, laughter, torches, tambourines on the bank.... It's a troop of Bacchantes dancing with songs and cries. It's your business to make a picture of it, Mr. Poet;... only I should like the torches to be red and to smoke a great deal, and the Bacchantes' eyes to gleam under their wreaths, and the wreaths to be dusky.
Suddenly, with banging tampani and the crash of cymbals, rattle of tambourines and beating of tomtoms, the barbaric Ethiopians of the dancing orchestra began their syncopated outrages against every known law of harmony swinging weirdly into the bewitching, tickling, tingling rhythm of a maxixe.
Music too was there; the shrill peal of the Median trumpet, and soft tone of the Phrygian flute; the Jewish cymbal and harp, Paphlagonian tambourines and the stringed instruments of Ionia; Syrian kettle-drums and cymbals, the shells and drums of the Arians from the mouth of the Indus, and the loud notes of the Bactrian battle-trumpets.
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