The spokesman of this wonderful trick--if trick it were--now waved me
backward with his wand, and as I withdrew, my eyes still fixed upon the
group, and this time encircled with an aura of mystery in my fancy;
backing toward the ring of spectators, I saw him raise his hand
suddenly, with a gesture of command, as a signal to the usher who
carried the golden wand in front.

The usher struck his wand on the ground, and, in a shrill voice,
proclaimed: "The great Confu is silent for an hour."

Instantly the bearers pulled down a sort of blind of bamboo, which
descended with a sharp clatter, and secured it at the bottom; and then
the man in the tall fez, with the black beard and wand, began a sort of
dervish dance. In this the men with the gold wands joined, and finally,
in an outer ring, the bearers, the palanquin being the center of the
circles described by these solemn dancers, whose pace, little by little,
quickened, whose gestures grew sudden, strange, frantic, as the motion
became swifter and swifter, until at length the whirl became so rapid
that the dancers seemed to fly by with the speed of a mill-wheel, and
amid a general clapping of hands, and universal wonder, these strange
performers mingled with the crowd, and the exhibition, for the time at
least, ended.

The Marquis d'Harmonville was standing not far away, looking on the
ground, as one could judge by his attitude and musing. I approached, and
he said:

"The Count has just gone away to look for his wife. It is a pity she was
not here to consult the prophet; it would have been amusing, I daresay,