That which followed will remain painted on the walls of never-to-be-forgotten memories.
Figures, dark, creeping figures, appeared in this dimly lighted room.
Once again the curtain, a red and glowing thing, crept across the stage. She gripped Marjory Dean’s hand hard.
Some figures appeared before the curtain. Grotesque figures. They danced as she had imagined only gnomes and elves might dance. A vast, many-colored dragon crept from the darkness. With a mighty lashing of tail, he swallowed the dancers, then disappeared into the darkness from which he had come.
“Oh!” Jeanne breathed. Even Marjory Dean, who had witnessed many forms of magic, was staring straight ahead.
A single figure appeared on the stage, one all in white. The figure wore a long, flowing robe. The face was white.
From somewhere strange music began to whisper. It was like wind sighing in the trees, the trees in the graveyard at midnight. And this was midnight.
Next instant Jeanne leaped straight into the air. Someone had struck a gong, an Oriental gong.
Mortified beyond belief, she settled back in her place.
And now the magic curtain, like some wall of fire, burned a fiercer red. From the shadows the dragon thrust out his head once more.