17
The next evening Dylar came for Tacita and her friend to go with him and hear a recitation of one of their story-tellers.
The place was a nook of the ravine leading to the kitchens, and was so completely shut in by high rocks as to be quite secluded.
An irregular circle capable of admitting fifty persons had a shoal alcove at one side, and all around it low benches on which were laid thick straw mats stuffed with moss. In the alcove was a chair; and an olive-oil lamp of four flames was set in a niche of the rock above. These flames threw a strong, rich light on a score or two of men and women in the circle, their faces shining out like medallions; but they touched the man who sat in the chair only in some fugitive line on his hair, or cheek, as he moved. His form was scarcely defined
