“Scarlett,” she whispered, as though naming a sacred thing.
The mayor, who had toddled some distance ahead of us, now halted in the square, looking back at us through the red evening light.
“Jacqueline, the drum is in my house. I’ll lend you a pair of sabots, too. Come, hasten little idler!”
We entered the mayor’s garden, where the flowers were glowing in the lustre of the setting sun. I sat down in a chair; Jacqueline waited, hands resting on her hips, small, shapely toes restlessly brushing the grass.
“Truly this coming wonder-show will be a peep into paradise,” she murmured. “Can all be true—really true as it is printed here in this bill—I wonder—”
Before she had time to speculate further, the mayor 176 reappeared with drum and drum-sticks in one hand and a pair of sabots in the other. He flung the sabots on the grass, and Jacqueline, quite docile now, slipped both bare feet into them.
“You may keep them,” said the mayor, puffing out his mottled cheeks benevolently; “decency must be maintained in Paradise, even if it beggars me.”
“Thank you,” said Jacqueline, sweetly, slinging the drum across her hip and tightening the cords. She clicked the ebony sticks, touched the tightly drawn parchment, sounding it with delicate fingers, then looked up at the mayor for further orders.
“Go, my child,” said the mayor, amiably, and Jacqueline marched through the garden out into the square by the fountain, drum-sticks clutched in one tanned fist, the scrolls of paper in the other.
In the centre of the square she stood a moment, looking around, then raised the drum-sticks; there came a click, a flash of metal, and the quiet square echoed with the startling outcrash. Back from roof and wall bounded the echoes; the stony pavement rang with the racket. Already a knot of people had gathered around her; others came swiftly to windows and doorsteps; the loungers left their stone benches by the river, the maids of Paradise flocked from the bridge. Even Robert the Lizard drew in his dripping line to listen. The drum-roll ceased.