A pause of comparative calm succeeded this grand chorus of ear-splitting noises.
The close-packed audience was waiting, stamping with impatience, for the curtain to rise. Then Jack-pudding came on, pulled his funny faces, and let off his jokes amidst a dropping fire of jeers and bravos, and presently made way for Esmeralda, the performing goat, “the unique, the incomparable Esmeralda, the very same identical animal described by the immortal Alexandre Hugo!” The musicians struck up an appropriate air, mostly made up of the vigorous thumping of drumsticks on drumheads.
XIV
Murph had never budged from his corner; he was quite insensible as yet to the din that had once had such power to excite him. His head resting on his outstretched paws, he lay asleep, stolid and stupid, callous to all external things. Round his neck, buried in the dirty, matted fleece, now long untouched by the curry-comb, were wound Jack’s arms; for Jack never left his side.
Esmeralda made her exit, and then suddenly bombarding the audience with a tornado of sound, the big drum rolled again, as if to announce some special and extraordinary turn.
Murph knew this furious, frantic prelude well; this was always the way Mazeppa’s headlong ride began. Yes, next moment, fifes, drums, bells, tom-toms struck up together in a mad concert of all the instruments combined, whereby the bandsmen strove to depict poor Mazeppa’s terrors as his galloping steed bore him off to be the prey of all the fiends of hell!
XV
Then something stirred in the old dog’s brain. Did he recall his former triumphs, the shouts of excited audiences, the encores, all the intoxicating successes of his life on the boards? Did some vision of an applauding multitude, of arms outstretched, and voices raised in gratitude, amid the crash of trumpet and drum, in the hot air thick with men’s breath and the fumes of powder—did some vision of all this pass before the poodle’s dying eyes?
It was a strange awakening, at any rate. Murph sprang suddenly to his feet, took a leap, and bounded on the stage, tail proudly swinging, and head erect, Jack hanging on to his woolly coat. Delighted, entranced, amazed, the poor little beast kept craning over to peer into his comrade’s face, to see if it was really true, and watch the light of life dawning and brightening in his deep-set eyes.
So his friend was himself again at last! So they were to begin the old merry life again, to gallop and leap, and risk their necks as in the dear, daredevil days of yore! Jack danced and pranced on the poodle’s back, as if drunk with the delight of this miraculous transformation.