snakes."

A crowd gathered, but the snake-charmer saw only the big man who had
spoken to his homesick heart, and the girl with the silver beads. He
knew another girl who had had a string of beads like that--and they had
brought her luck--a dark-skinned girl, his daughter. Her husband had
bestowed the beads on her marriage night, and her first child had been a
son.

He put the thin reed to his lips, and blew upon it. The snakes lifted
their heads. He drew them up and out of the basket, and put them through
their fantastic paces. Then he laid aside his pipe, shut them in their
basket, and spoke to Christopher.

"He says that no evil can teach you while you wear the beads,"
Christopher told Anne.

The old man, with his eyes on her intent face, spoke again. "What you
think is evil--cannot be evil," Christopher interpreted. "The gods know
best."

They moved toward the inner tent.

"Are you tired?" Christopher asked. "We don't have to stay."

"I want to stay," and so they went in, and presently with a blare of
trumpets the great parade began. They looked down on men and women in
Roman chariots, men on horseback, women on horseback, on elephants, on
camels--painted ladies in howdahs, painted ladies in sedan
chairs--Cleopatra, Pompadour--history reduced to pantomime, color