A horror of the spirit came over me, and, as if rapt away from myself, I stared sheer up at him.
"Beware, my friend," I cried up at him. "Have a care. I see a rope around your neck."
It was the truth. In the gloom, actually with my own eyes, I saw a noose loosely dangling there over his round, heavy shoulders.
So to this day I see my showman. His circus, I believe, continues to roam the English country-side, and by the mercy of heaven he will die in his bed, or, better still, in the bracken. But I suppose, like most of us, he was a slave to his own superstitions, or perhaps it was my very littleness, combined with the memory of some old story he had heard as a boy, that intimidated him. His mouth opened; his whip shook; the grin of a wild beast swept over his face. But he said no more.
Yet his, none the less, was half the victory. Nothing on earth could now have dissuaded me from keeping my bargain. His words had bitterly frightened me. No one else should be "gowked" up there. I turned my back on him. He could go; I was ready.
But if I could be obstinate, so too could Mr Anon. And when at last our argument was over, I in sheer weariness had agreed to a compromise. It was that I should show myself; and he take my place in the circus. The showman's money was safe; that was all he cared about. If "Humpty" liked to petticoat himself up like a doxy and take my "turn" in the ring—why, it was a rank smelling robbery, but let him—let him. He bawled for the woman, flung a last curse at us, and withdrew.
We were alone—only the vacancy of the tent between us. Beyond the narrow slit I could see the merry jostling crowds, hoydens and hobbledehoys, with their penny squirts and pasteboard noses and tin trumpets. A strange luminousness bathed their faces and clothes, beautifying them with light and shadow, carpeting with its soft radiance the rough grey-green grass. The harvest moon was brightening. I went near to him and touched his sleeve. His lips contracted, his shoulder drew in from my touch.
"Listen," I pleaded. "One hour—that is all. That evening in Wanderslore—do you remember? All my troubles over. Yes, I know. I have brought you to this. But then we can talk. Then you shall forgive me."
He stretched out his hand. A shuffling step, a light were approaching. I fled back, snatched up my bundle, and climbed up into the darkness behind my canvas curtain. The next moment gigantic shadows rushed furiously into hiding, the tent was swamped with the flaring of the naphtha-lamp which the gipsy-woman had come to hang to the tent-pole to light my last séance.
A few hasty minutes, and, stealing out, I bade Mr Anon look. All Angélique's fair hair had been tied into a bob and draped mantilla-fashion with a thick black veil. A black, coarse fringe torn from the head of a doll which I had found in the bottom of my trunk, dangled over her forehead. Her eyebrows were angled up like a Chinaman's. Her cheeks were chalk-white, except for a dab of red on the bone, and she was dressed in a flounced gown, jet black and yellow, which I had cobbled up overnight and had padded out, bust, hips, and shoulders to nearly double my natural size. A spreading topaz brooch was on her breast, chains of beads and coral dangled to her waist, and a silk fan lay on her arm.