The Magic Curtain Part 4

Pet.i.te Jeanne was a person of courage. Times there had been when, as a child living with the gypsies of France, she had believed that she saw a ghost. At the heart of black woods, beneath a hedge on a moonless night some white thing lying just before her had moved in the most blood-chilling fashion. Never, on such an occasion, had Jeanne turned to flee. Always, with knees trembling, heart in her throat, she had marched straight up to the "ghost." Always, to be sure, the "ghost" had vanished, but Jeanne had gained courage by such adventures. So now, as she glided down the soft-carpeted, circular staircase with the heavy odor of incense rising before her and the play of eerie green lights all about her, she took a strong grip on herself, bade her fluttering heart be still, and steadily descended into the mysterious unknown.

The scene that met her gaze as at last she reached those lower levels, was fantastic in the extreme. A throng of little brown people, dressed in richest silks, their faces shining strangely in the green light, sat in small circles on rich Oriental rugs.

Scattered about here and there all over the room were low pedestals and on these pedestals rested incense burners. Fantastic indeed were the forms of these burners: ancient dragons done in copper, eagles of bra.s.s with wings spread wide, twining serpents with eyes of green jade, and faces, faces of ugly men done in copper. These were everywhere.

As Jeanne sank silently to a place on the floor, she felt that some great event in the lives of these people was about to transpire. They did not speak; they whispered; and once, then again, and yet again, their eyes strayed expectantly to a low stage, built across the far end of the room.

"What is to happen?" the girl asked herself. She shuddered. To forget that she was in a secret place at the very heart of a Chinese temple built near the center of a great city--this was impossible.

"I shouldn't be here," she chided herself. "Something may happen to me. I may be detained. I may not be able to reach the Opera House in time. And then--"

She wondered what that would mean. She realized with a sort of shock that she was strangely indifferent to it all. Truth was, events had so shaped themselves that she was at that moment undecided where her own best good lay. She had ventured something, had begun playing the role of a boy. She had done this that she might gain a remote end. The end now seemed very remote indeed. The perils involved in reaching that end had increased four-fold.

"Why go back at all?" she asked herself. "As Pierre I can die very comfortably. As Pet.i.te Jeanne I can live on. And no one will ever know. I am--"

Her thoughts were interrupted, not by a sound nor a movement, but by a sudden great silence that had fallen, like a star from the sky at night, upon the a.s.sembled host of little people.

Pet.i.te Jeanne was not a stranger to silence. She had stood at the edge of a clearing before an abandoned cabin, far from the home of any living man just as the stars were coming out, when a hush had fallen over all; not a leaf had stirred, not a bird note had sounded, and the living, breathing world had seemed far away. She had called that silence.

She had drifted with idle paddle in a canoe far out upon the glimmering surface of Lake Huron. There, alone, with night falling, she had listened until every tiniest wavelet had gone to rest. She had heard the throb of a motor die away in the distance. She had felt rather than heard the breath of air stirred by the last lone seagull on his way to some rocky ledge for rest. She had at last listened for the faintest sound, then had whispered:

"This is silence."

It may have been, but never had a silence impressed her as did the silence of this moment as, seated there on the floor, far from her friends, an uninvited guest to some weird ceremony, she awaited with bated breath that which was to come.

She had not long to wait. A long tremulous sigh, like the tide sweeping across the ocean at night, pa.s.sed over the motionless throng; a sigh, that was all.

But Pet.i.te Jeanne? She wished to scream, to rise and dash out of the room crying, "Fire! Fire!"

She did not scream. Something held her back. Perhaps it was the sigh, and perhaps the silence.

The thing that was happening was weird in the extreme. On the stage a curtain was slowly, silently closing. No one was near to close it. It appeared endowed with life. This was not all. The curtain was aflame.

Tongues of fire darted up its folds. One expected this fire to roar. It did not. Yet, as the little French girl, with heart in throat and finger nails cutting deep, sat there petrified, flames raced up the curtain again and yet again. And all the time, in great, graceful folds, it was gliding, silently gliding from the right and the left.

"Soon it will close," she told herself. "And then--"

Only one thought saved Jeanne from a scream that would have betrayed her; not a soul in that impa.s.sive throng had moved or spoken. It was borne in upon her that here was some form of magic which she did not know.

"It's a magic curtain." These words, formed by her lips were not so much as whispered.

But now from a dark corner of the stage a figure appeared. A weird stooping figure he was, clothed all in white. He moved toward the curtain with slow, halting steps. He seemed desirous of pa.s.sing between the folds of the curtain before the opening; yet a great fear appeared to hold him back.

At this moment there came to Jeanne's mind words from a very ancient book:

"_Draw not nigh hither. Put off thy shoes from thy feet._"

"The burning bush!" she whispered. "It burned but was not consumed; a magic bush. This is a magic curtain."

"_Remove thy shoes._"

She seemed to hear someone repeat these words.

Her hands went to her feet. They were fully clad. A quick glance to right and left a.s.sured her that not another person in the room wore shoes.

"My shoes will betray me!" Consternation seized her. One look backward, a stealthy creeping toward the soft-carpeted stair, another stealthy move and she was on her way out.

But would she make it? Her heart was in her throat. A quarter of the way up she was obliged to pause. She was suffocating with fear.

"I must be calm," she whispered. "I must! I must!" Of a sudden life seemed a thing of solemn beauty. Somehow she must escape that she might live on and on.

Once again she was creeping upward. Did a hand touch her foot? Was someone preparing to seize her? With an effort, she looked down. No one was following. Every eye was glued upon the magic curtain. The curtain was closed. The white-robed figure had vanished. What had happened? Had he pa.s.sed through? Had the curtain consumed him? She shuddered. Then, summoning all her courage, she leaped up the stairs, glided silently across the room above, and pa.s.sed swiftly on until she gained the open air.

Then how she sped away! Never had she raced so swiftly and silently as now.

It was some time before she realized how futile was her flight. No one pursued her.

In time she was able to still her wildly beating heart. Then she turned toward home.

Once she stopped dead in her tracks to exclaim: "The magic curtain! Oh!

Why did I run away?"

Then, as another mood seized her, she redoubled her pace. Florence, she hoped, awaited her with a roaring fire, a cup of hot chocolate and a good scolding.

CHAPTER VI THE WOMAN IN BLACK

By the time she reached the doorway that led to her humble abode, Pet.i.te Jeanne was in high spirits. The brisk walk had stirred her blood. Her recent adventure had quickened her imagination. She was prepared for anything.

Alas, how quickly all this vanished! One moment she was a heroine marching forth to face that which life might fling at her; the next she was limp as a rag doll. Such was Pet.i.te Jeanne. The cause?

The room she entered was dark; chill damp hung over the place like a shroud. Florence was not there. The fire was dead. Cheer had pa.s.sed from the place; gloom had come.

Jeanne could build a fire. This is an art known to all wanderers, and she had been a gypsy. But she lacked the will to put her skill to the test, so, quite in despair, she threw herself in a chair and lay there, looking for all the world like a deserted French doll, as she whispered to herself:

"What can it matter? Life is without a true purpose, all life. Why should one struggle? Why not go down with the tide? Why--"

But in one short moment all this was changed. The door flew open.

Florence burst into the room and with her came a whole gust of fresh lake air, or so it seemed to Jeanne.

"You have been to the island!" she exclaimed, as she became a very animated doll.

"Yes, I have been there." Excitement shone from the big girl's eyes. "And I have made a surprising discovery. But wait. What ails the fire?"

"There is no fire."

"But why?"