This much Steve Duane saw with growing wonder. Then the band drew still nearer, and the chant of the golden Diana became audible.
At first the words meant nothing. They were part of an intoned, indistinguishable blur, signifying nothing. Then suddenly—as if one strophe of a sacred ritual had ended and another begun—the chant slowed. Halting words emerged from the meaningless drone—and it was no longer meaningless. As one mesmerized, Steve hearkened incredulously to the chant of the dust-gold maiden.
"Osé, can you see by the Daans' surly light—"
The American national anthem! Steve's eyes narrowed in dazed bewilderment. Francis Scott Key's immortal words—immortal indeed!—but phrased all wrong, curiously accented, broken in the wrong places! Behind him, Chuck emitted a tiny gasp, but it went unnoticed as the voice of the cantor lifted sonorously.
"—the rockets' red glare-bombs bursting in air—"
There it was again! The right words, or right syllables, but improperly cadenced so that the whole true meaning of the song was distorted! Holding his peace was the hardest task Steve Duane had ever undertaken. Every fretful instinct urged him to interrupt this grotesquely mangled hymn.
But it was wiser, reason warned him, to just listen. Listen and learn more. The girl had lifted her head now, and was looking directly at him. A mist of reflected candlelight enmeshed her hair with a halo of golden glory. And there was radiance in her eyes, too; a bright, high burning, with which was somehow strangely mingled desperation and—hope! Liquid fire flamed in her throbbing voice.
"Osé, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land, O, Thou Free? Or
Thy hoam, O, Thou Brave?"