Zouche had another fit of laughter. He had never seen the little girl in such a temper. He tried to assume gravity.
“Pequita, you are naughty! The flatteries of the great world are spoiling you!”
“Bah!” said Pequita, with a contemptuous wave of her small brown hands. “The flatteries of the great world! To what do they lead? To that!” and she made another eloquent sign towards the Royal box;—“I would rather dance for you and Lotys, and Sergius Thord, and Pasquin Leroy, than all the Kings of the world together! What I do here is for my father’s sake—you know that!”
“I know!” and Zouche smoked on, and shook his wild head sentimentally,—murmuring in a sotto-voce:
“What I do here, is for the need of gold,—
What I do there, is for sweet love’s sake only;
Love, ever timid there, doth here grow bold,—
And wins such triumph as but leaves me lonely!”
“Is that yours?” said Pequita with a sudden smile.
“Mine, or Shakespeare’s,” answered Zouche indolently; “Does it matter which?”
Pequita laughed, and her cue being just then called, again she bounded on to the stage; but this time she played her part, as the stock phrase goes, ‘to the gallery,’ and did not once turn her eyes towards the place where the King sat withdrawn into the shadow of his box, giving no sign of applause. She, however, had caught sight of Sergius Thord and some of her Revolutionary friends seated ‘among the gods,’ and that was enough inspiration for her. Something,—a quite indefinable something,—a touch of personal or spiritual magnetism, had been fired in her young soul; and gradually as the Opera went on, her fellow-players became infected by it. Some of them gave her odd, half-laughing glances now and then,—being more or less amazed at the unusual vigour with which she sang, in her pure childish soprano, the few strophes of recitative and light song attached to her part;—the very prima-donna herself caught fire,—and the distinguished tenor, who had travelled all the way from Buda Pesth in haste, so that he might ‘create’ the chief rôle in the work of his friend Valdor, began to feel that there was something more in operatic singing than the mere inflation of the chest, and the careful production of perfectly-rounded notes. Valdor himself played the various violin solos which occurred frequently throughout the piece, and never failed to evoke a storm of rapturous plaudits,—and many were the half-indignant glances of the audience towards the Royal shrine of draped satin, gilding, and electric light, wherein the King, like an idol, sat,—undemonstrative, and apparently more bored than satisfied. There was a general feeling that he ought to have shown,—by his personal applause in public,—a proper appreciation of the many gifted artists playing that evening, especially in the case of Louis Valdor, the composer of the Opera itself. But he sat inert, only occasionally glancing at the stage, and anon carelessly turning away from it to converse with the members of his suite.
The piece went on;—and more and more the passion of Pequita’s pent-up little soul communicated itself to the other performers,—till they found themselves almost unconsciously obeying her ‘lead.’ At last came the grand final act,—where, in accordance with the progress of the story, the bold band of ‘New Christians’ are fought back from the gates of the Vatican by the Papal Guard; and the Roman populace, roused to enthusiasm, gather round their defeated ranks to defend and to aid them with sympathy and support in their combat,—breaking forth all together at last in the triumphant ‘Song of Freedom.’ Truly grand and majestic was this same song,—pulsating with truth and passion,—breathing with the very essence of liberty,—an echo of the heart and soul of strong nations who struggle, even unto death, for the lawful rights of humanity denied to them by the tyrants in place and power. As the superb roll and swell of the glorious music poured through the crowded house, there was an almost unconscious movement among the audience,—the people in the gallery rose en masse, and at the close of the first verse, responded to it by a mighty cheer, which reverberated through and through the immense building like thunder. The occupants of the stalls and boxes exchanged wondering and half-frightened looks,—then as the cheer subsided, settled themselves again to listen, more or less spell-bound, as the second verse began. Just before this had merged into its accompanying splendid and soul-awakening chorus,—Pequita,—having obtained the consent of the manager to execute her ‘Dagger Dance’ in the middle of the song, instead of at the end,—suddenly sprang towards the footlights in a pirouette of extravagant and exquisite velocity—while,—checked by a sign from the conductor, the singers ceased. Without music, in an absolute stillness as of death, the girl swung herself to and fro, like a bell-flower in the breeze,—anon she sprang and leaped like a scarlet flame—and again sank into a slow and voluptuous motion, as of a fairy who dreamingly glides on tiptoe over a field of flowers. Then, on a sudden, while the fascinated spectators watched her breathlessly,—she seemed to wake from sleep,—and running forward wildly, began to toss and whirl her scarlet skirts, her black curls streaming, her dark eyes flashing with mingled defiance and scorn, while drawing from her breast an unsheathed dagger, she flung it in the air, caught it dexterously by the hilt again, twisted and turned it in every possible way,—now beckoning, now repelling, now defending,—and lastly threatening, with a passionate intensity of action that was well-nigh irresistible.
Caught by the marvellous subtlety of her performance, quite one half the audience now rose instinctively, all eyes being fixed on the strange evolutions of this whirling, flying thing that seemed possessed by the very devil of dancing! The King at last attracted, leaned slightly forward from his box with a tolerant smile,—the Queen’s face was as usual, immovable,—the Princes Rupert and Cyprian stared, open-mouthed—while over the whole brilliant scene that remarkable silence brooded, like the sultry pause before the breaking of a storm. Triumphant, reckless, panting,—scarcely knowing what she did in her excitement,—Pequita, suddenly running backward, with the lightness of thistle-down flying before the wind, snatched the flag of the country from a super standing by, and dancing forward again, waved it aloft, till with a final abandonment of herself to the humour of the moment, she sprang with a single bound towards the Royal box, and there—the youthful incarnation of living, breathing passion, fury, patriotism, and exultation in one,—dropped on one knee, the flag waving behind her, the dagger pointed straight upward, full at the King!