The Maids of Paradise Part 58

"Oh," I said, "before night? Why before night?"

"Wait and see then," he muttered. "Anyway, get out of my house--d'

ye hear?"

"We are going to give that performance at two o'clock this afternoon," I said. "After that, another to-morrow at the same hour, and on every day at the same hour, as long as it pays. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly," sneered the mayor.

"And," I continued, "if the governor of Lorient sends gendarmes to conduct us to the steams.h.i.+p in Lorient harbor, they'll take with them somebody besides the circus folk."

"You mean me?" he inquired.

"I do."

"What do I care?" he bawled in a fury. "You had better go to Lorient, I tell you. What do you know about the commune? What do you know about universal brotherhood? Everybody's everybody's brother, whether you like it or not! I'm your brother, and if it doesn't suit you you may go to the devil!"

Watching the infuriated magistrate, I said in English to Speed: "This is interesting. Buckhurst has learned we are here, and has paid this fellow heavily to have us expelled. What sense do you make of all this?--for I can make none."

"Nor can I," muttered Speed; "there's a link gone; we'll find it soon, I fancy. Without that link there's no logic in this matter."

"Look here," I said, sharply, to the mayor, who had waddled toward the door, which was guarded by Kelly Eyre.

"Well, I'm looking," he snarled.

Then I patiently pointed out to him his folly, and he listened with ill-grace, obstinate, mute, dull cunning gleaming from his half-closed eyes.

Then I asked him what he would do if the cruiser began dropping sh.e.l.ls into Paradise; he deliberately winked at me and thrust his tongue into his cheek.

"So you know that the cruiser has gone?" I asked.

He grinned.

"Do you suppose Buckhurst's men hold the semaph.o.r.e? If they do, they sent that cruiser on a fool's errand," whispered Speed.

Here was a nice plot! I stepped to the window. Outside in the square Buckhurst was still speaking to a spellbound, gaping throng. A few men cheered him. They were strangers in Paradise.

"What's he doing it for?" I asked, utterly at a loss to account for proceedings which seemed to me the acme of folly. "He must know that the commune cannot be started here in Brittany! Speed, what is that man up to?"

Behind us the mayor was angrily demanding that we leave his house; and after a while we did so, skirting the crowd once more to where, in a cleared s.p.a.ce near the fountain, Buckhurst stood, red flag in hand, ranging a dozen peasants in line. The peasants were not Paradise men; they wore the costumes of the interior, and somebody had already armed them with scythes, rusty boarding-pikes, stable-forks, and one or two flintlock muskets. An evil-looking crew, if ever I saw one; wild-eyed, long-haired, bare of knee and ankle, loutish faces turned toward the slim, gray, pale-faced orator who confronted them, flag in hand. They were the sc.u.m of Morbihan.

He told them that they were his guard of honor, the glory of their race--a sacred battalion whose names should s.h.i.+ne high on the imperishable battlements of freedom.

Around them the calm-eyed peasants stared at them stupidly; women gazed fascinated when Buckhurst, raising his flag, pointed in silence to the mayor's house, where that official stood in his doorway, observing the scene:

"Forward!" said Buckhurst, and the grotesque escort started with a clatter of heavy sabots and a rattle of scythes. The crowd fell back to give them way, then closed in behind like a herd of sheep, following to the mayor's house, where Buckhurst set his sentinels and then entered, closing the door behind him.

"Well!" muttered Speed, in amazement.

After a long silence, Kelly Eyre looked at his watch. "It's time we were in the tent," he observed, dryly; and we turned away without a word. At the bridge we stopped and looked back. The red flag was flying from the mayor's house.

"Speed," I said, "there's one thing certain: Byram can't stay if there's going to be fighting here. I heard guns at sea this morning; I don't know what that may indicate. And here's this idiotic revolution started in Paradise! That means the troops from Lorient, and a wretched lot of bushwhacking and guerrilla work. Those Faouet Bretons that Buckhurst has recruited are a bad lot; there is going to be trouble, I tell you."

Eyre suggested that we arm our circus people, and Speed promised to attend to it and to post them at the tent doors, ready to resist any interference with the performance on the part of Buckhurst's recruits.

It was already nearly one o'clock as we threaded our way through the crowds at the entrance, where our band was playing gayly and thousands of white head-dresses fluttered in the sparkling suns.h.i.+ne that poured intermittently from a sky where great white clouds were sailing seaward.

"Walk right up, messoors! Entry done, mesdames, see voo play!"

shouted Byram, waving a handful of red and blue tickets. "Animals all on view before the performance begins! Walk right into the corridor of livin' marvels and defunct curiosities! Bring the little ones to see the elephant an' the camuel--the fleet s.h.i.+p of the Sairy! Don't miss nothing! Don't fail to contemplate le ploo magnifique spectacle in all Europe! Don't let n.o.body say you died an' never saw the only Flyin' Mermaid! An' don't forget the prize--ten thousand francs to the man, woman, or che-ild who can prove that this here Flyin' Mermaid ain't a fictious bein' straight from Paradise!"

Speed and I made our way slowly through the crush to the stables, then around to the dressing-rooms, where little Grigg, in his spotted clown's costume, was putting the last touches of vermilion to his white cheeks, and Horan, draped in a mangy leopard-skin to imitate Hercules, sat on his two-thousand-pound dumbbell, curling his s.h.i.+ny black mustache with Mrs. Grigg's iron.

"Jacqueline's dressed," cried Miss Crystal, parting the curtain of her dressing-room, just enough to show her pretty, excited eyes and nose.

"All right; I won't be long," replied Speed, who was to act as ring-master. And he turned and looked at me as I raised the canvas flap which screened my dressing-room.

"I think," I said, "that we had better ride over to Trecourt after the show--not that there's any immediate danger--"

"There is no immediate danger," said Speed, "because she is here."

My face began to burn; I looked at him miserably. "How do you know?"

"She is there in the tent. I saw her."

He came up and held his hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry I told you,"

he said.

"Why?" I asked. "She knows what I am. Is there any reason why she should not be amused? I promise you she shall be!"

"Then why do you speak so bitterly? Don't misconstrue her presence.

Don't be a contemptible fool. If I have read her face--and I have never spoken to her, as you know--I tell you, Scarlett, that young girl is going through an ordeal! Do women of that kind come to shows like this to be amused?"

"What do you mean?" I said, angrily.

"I mean that she _could_ not keep away! And I tell you to be careful with your lions, to spare her any recklessness on your part, to finish as soon as you can, and get out of that cursed cage. If you don't you're a coward, and a selfish one at that!"

His words were like a blow in the face; I stared at him, too confused even for anger.

"Oh, you fool, you fool!" he said, in a low voice. "She cares for you; can't you understand?"

And he turned on his heel, leaving me speechless.

I do not remember dressing. When I came out into the pa.s.sageway Byram beckoned me, and pointed at a crack in the canvas through which one could see the interior of the amphitheatre. A mellow light flooded the great tent; spots of suns.h.i.+ne fell on the fresh tan-bark, where long, luminous, dusty beams slanted from the ridge-pole athwart the golden gloom.

Tier on tier the wooden benches rose, packed with women in brilliant holiday dress, with men gorgeous in silver and velvet, with children decked in lace and gilt chains. The air was filled with the starched rustle of white coiffes and stiff collarettes; a low, incessant clatter of sabots sounded from gallery to arena; gusts of breathless whispering pa.s.sed like capricious breezes blowing, then died out in the hush which fell as our band-master, McCadger, raised his wand and the band burst into "Dixie."

At that the great canvas flaps over the stable entrance slowly parted and the scarlet-draped head of Djebe, the elephant, appeared. On he came, amid a rising roar of approval, Speed in gorgeous robes perched on high, ankus raised. After him came the camel, all over ta.s.sels and gold net, bestridden by Kelly Eyre, wearing a costume seldom seen anywhere, and never in the Sahara. White horses, piebald horses, and cream-colored horses pranced in the camel's wake, dragging a.s.sorted chariots tenanted by gentlemen in togas; pretty little Mrs. Grigg, in habit and scarlet jacket, followed on Briza, the white mare; Horan came next, driving more horses; the dens of ferocious beasts creaked after, guarded by a phalanx of stalwart stablemen in plumes and armor; then Miss Crystal, driving zebras to a gilt chariot; then more men in togas, leading monkeys mounted on ponies; and finally Mrs. Horan seated on a huge egg drawn by ostriches.

Once only they circled the sawdust ring; then the band stopped, the last of the procession disappeared, the clown came shrieking and tumbling out into the arena with his "Here we are again!"