Rustle, thump! rustle, thump! rustle, thump! with the rhythm of harmonious voices.
Edouard got his head and foot into the room without taking his eye off Raynal.
Rustle, thump! rustle, thump! rustle, thump!
Raynal was now at the screen, and quietly put his head round it, and his hand upon it.
Edouard was bursting with expectation.
No result. What is this? Don’t they see him? Why does he not speak to them? He seems transfixed.
Rustle, thump! rustle, thump; accompanied now for a few notes by one voice only, Rose’s.
Suddenly there burst a shriek from Josephine, so loud, so fearful, that it made even Raynal stagger back a step, the screen in his hand.
Then another scream of terror and anguish from Rose. Then a fainter cry, and the heavy helpless fall of a human body.
Raynal sprang forward whirling the screen to the earth in terrible agitation, and Edouard bounded over it as it fell at his feet. He did not take a second step. The scene that caught his eye stupefied and paralyzed him in full career, and froze him to the spot with amazement and strange misgivings.