Page:Fantastics and other Fancies.djvu/65

 THE STRANGER

Italian had kept us all spellbound for hours, while a great yellow moon was climbing higher and higher above the leaves of the bananas that nodded weirdly at the windows. Within the great hall a circle of attentive listeners—composed of that motley mixture of the wanderers of all nations, such as can be found only in New Orleans, and perhaps Marseilles—sat in silence about the lamplit table, riveted by the speaker's dark eyes and rich voice. There was a natural music in those tones; the stranger chanted as he spoke like a wizard weaving a spell. And speaking to each one in the tongue of his own land, he told them of the Orient. For he had been a wanderer in many lands; and afar off, touching the farther horn of the moonlight crescent, lay awaiting him a long, graceful vessel with a Greek name, which would unfurl her white wings for flight with the first ruddiness of morning.

"I see that you are a smoker," observed the stranger to his host as he rose to go. "May I