We had been about to rush in and do what we could to aid our companion, but Gale, who was ahead and got the first glimpse beyond the curtain, stopped us. Then he drew the curtain still farther aside, and we all looked in.
About the center of the vast depths, the crowded torches were swaying. They made a lurid circle, beyond which the symboled and draped walls melted into shadows and blackness. But in the midst of the torches rose the great central altar, still bestrewn with the flowers of their recent ceremonial. About its base the angry ones had gathered, while above them, before the very shrine of the Sun itself, there stood two of the fairest creatures under heaven—our own beautiful Ferratoni, and at his side, her arms laid about his shoulders, the Princess of the Lilied Hills.
Chauncey Gale insists that grouped on a lower step of the altar, bowed like the children of Niobe, were those who would have granted also to us the sacred Pardon of Love. But I did not see them, nor did Mr. Sturritt, and I do not believe Gale did, either. Indeed, we had eyes only for those other two. Like the populace, spellbound and speechless, forgetting our own existence, we stood and gaped at them. Gale was first to recall himself.
“Tableau!” he said, “show’s over! Let’s ring down the curtain, now, and get out of here, quick!”
The Pardon of Love.
“There fell upon them a long golden bar of the returning sunlight.”—Page [288].
Yet we lingered for one final look. And lo, all at once, from some high oriel window, there fell upon them a long golden bar of the returning sunlight. And the silence about them awakened to a wondering murmur that grew to a low chant, then quickly increased in volume, bursting at last into a mighty anthem which we recognized as their marriage chorus.
“Come! Come!” insisted Gale. “That isn’t for us. The orchestra is playing us out. Let’s take the hint and go before they change their minds. ’Tisn’t our wedding, and we don’t want it to be our funeral, either.”
Reluctantly we dropped the curtains then, and hastened down the steps. It was still raining wispily, but the sun was rifting through, and a wonderful rainbow arched the black sky opposite. We pushed off our boat, and bent to the oars with all our strength, sending the light barge swiftly down the tide that between the Lilied Hills, through the Purple Fields, and under the Plains of White found its way at last to the far-off Billowcrest—and home.