“Oh, Maritaña! Maritaña! Shame! shame!” Scarcely had the wild cry re-echoed through the house than, with a scream, whose terror pierced every heart, the girl started from her studied attitude, and rushed forward towards the footlights, her frighted looks and pale cheeks seeming ghastly with emotion.
“Where?—where?” cried she. “Speak again—I know the voice!” But already a scene of uproar and confusion had arisen in the parterre around Cashel, whose interruption of the piece called down universal reprobation; and cries of “Out with him!” “Away with him!” rose on every side.
Struggling madly and fiercely against his assailants, Cashel for a brief space seemed likely to find his way to the stage; but overcome by numbers, he was subdued at last, and consigned to the hands of the guard. His last look, still turned to the “scene,” showed him Maritaña, as she was carried away senseless and fainting.
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE FATE OF KEANE—HIS DEPOSITION.
The laughing Seine, whose midnight flood
Shrouds many a deed of crime and blood!
Warren.
They alone who have passed much of their lives on the Continent of Europe can estimate the amount of excitement caused by such an incident as that we have just related. So much of life is centred in the theatre, so many interests revolve around it, engrossing, as it does, so much of the passions and the prejudices of those whose existence seldom rises above the pursuit of pleasure, that anything which might interrupt “the scene,” which should disturb its progress, or mar its effect, is sure to evoke the loudest evidence of public indignation. Where a high cultivation of the arts is employed to gloss over the corruptions of a vicious system, it may be easily conceived how men would be judged more leniently for crimes than for those minor offences which rebel against the usages of good society.
The “Ballet interrupted in its most interesting moment,” “La Ninetta carried away fainting at the very commencement of her most attractive movement,” insulted—so it was rumored—“by some offensive epithet of a Spaniard,” were enough to carry indignation to the highest pitch, and it needed the protection of the guard to screen him from the popular vengeance.
After a night of feverish anxiety, where hopes and fears warred and conflicted with each other, Cashel was early on the following morning conducted before the chief commissary of the police. His passport represented him as a Spaniard, and he adhered to the pretended nationality to avoid the dreaded notoriety of his name.
While he answered the usual questions as to age, religion, and profession, an officer deposited a sealed paper in the hands of the prefetto; who, opening it, appeared to study the contents with much care.