CHAPTER VII

_The Crimson Murderess_

Hope murmured. "The three-part music comes first. There will first be

the spiritual."

An orchestra was seated on the stage in a semi-circle. It was composed

of men and women musicians, and there seemed to be over a hundred of

them. They sat in three groups; the center group was about to play. In a

solemn hush the leaderless choirs, with all its players garbed in

white, began its first faint note. I craned to get a clear view of the

stage. This white choir seemed almost all wood-wind. There were tiny

pipes in little series such as Pan might have used. Flutes, and

flageolets; and round-bellied little instruments of clay, like ocarinas.

And pitch-pipes, long and slender as a marsh reed.

In a moment I was lost in the music. It began softly, with single muted

notes from a single instrument, echoed by the others, running about the

choir like a will-o'-the-wisp. It was faint, as though very far away,

made more sweet by distance. And then it swelled, came nearer.

I had never heard such music as this. Primitive! It was not that. Nor

barbaric! Nothing like the music of our ancient world. Nor was it what I

might conceive to be the music of our future. A thing apart, unworldly,

ethereal. It swept me, carried me off; it was an exaltation of the

spirit lifting me. It was triumphant now. It surged, but there was in

its rhythm, the beat of its every instrument, nothing but the soul of

purity. And then it shimmered into distance again, faint and exquisite

music of a dream. Crooning, pleading, the speech of whispering angels.

It ceased. There was a storm of applause.

I breathed again. Why, this was what music might be in our world but was

not. I thought of our blaring jazz.

Hope said, "Now they play the physical music. Then Sensua will dance

with Blanca. We will see then which one the king chooses."

* * * * *

On the stage all the torches were extinguished save those which were

red. The arena was darker than before. The stage was bathed with a deep

crimson. Music of the physical senses! It was, indeed, no more like the

other choir than is the body to the spirit.

There were stringed instruments playing now; deep-toned, singing

zithers, and instruments of rounded, swelling bodies, like great viols

with sensuous, throbbing voices. Music with a swift rhythm, marked by

the thump of hollow gourds. It rose with its voluptuous swell into a

paean of abandonment, and upon the tide of it, the crimson Sensua flung

herself upon the stage. She stood motionless for a moment that all might

regard her. The crimson torchlight bathed her, stained crimson the white

flush of her limbs, her heavy shoulders, her full, rounded throat.

A woman in her late twenties. Voluptuous of figure, with crimson veils

half-hiding, half-revealing it. A face of coarse, sensuous beauty. A

face wholly evil, and it seemed to me wholly debauched. Dark eyes with

beaded lashes. Heavy lips painted scarlet. A pagan woman of the streets.

One might have encountered such a woman swaggering in some ancient

street of some ancient city, flaunting the finery given her by a rich

and profligate eastern prince.

She stood a moment with smoldering, passion-filled eyes, gazing from

beneath her lowered lids. Her glance went to the king's canopy, and

flashed a look of confidence, of triumph. The king answered it with a

smile. He leaned forward over his railing, watching her intently.

With the surge of the music she moved into her dance. Slowly she began,

quite slowly. A posturing and swaying of hips like a nautch girl. She

made the rounds of the musicians, leering at them. She stood in the

whirl of the music, almost ignoring it, stood at the front of the stage

with a gaze of slumberous, insolent passion flung at the king. A knife

was in her hand now. She held it aloft. The red torchlight caught its

naked blade. With shuddering fancy I seemed to see it dripping crimson.

She frowned, and struck it at a phantom lover. She backed away. She

stooped and knelt. She knelt and seemed with her empty arms to be

caressing a murdered lover's head. She kissed him, rained upon his dead

lips her macabre kisses.

And then she was up on her bare feet, again circling the stage. Her

anklets clanked as she moved with the tread of a tigress. The musicians

shrank from her waving blade.

* * * * *

A girl in white veils was suddenly disclosed standing at the back of the

stage.

Derek whispered, "Is that Blanca?"

"Yes," whispered Hope.

Blanca stood watching her rival. The crimson Sensua passed her, took her

suddenly by the wrist, drew her forward. For an instant I thought it

might have been rehearsed. I saw Blanca as a slim, gentle girl in white,

with a white head-dress. A dancer who could symbolize purity, now in the

grip of red passion.

An instant, and then horror struck us. And I could feel it surge over

the audience. A gasp of horror. The frightened girl in white tried to

escape. The musicians wavered and broke. I stared, stricken, with

freezing blood. Upon the stage the knife went swiftly up; it came down;

then up again. The red Sensua stood gloating. The knife she waved aloft

was truly dripping crimson now.

With a choked, gasping scream the white girl of the toilers crumpled and

fell.... She lay motionless, at the feet of the crimson murderess.