At a tap of her whip a white angora and a sleek tabby jumped from the stands and took up their positions one at each end of a miniature tight-rope. Lola stuck a tiny Japanese umbrella in the collar of each and sent them forth on their perilous journey. When they met in the middle, they spat and caterwauled and argued spitefully. The audience shrieked. Then by a miracle the cats cleared each other and pursued their sedate and cautious ways to their respective ends of the rope. The next act was a team of a dozen rats drawing a tiled chariot driven by a stolid coal-black cat with green, expressionless eyes, down an aisle formed by the other cats who sat in solemn contemplation on their tails. There was no doubt of Lola's success. The tricks were as marvellous in themselves as their execution was flawless. During the applause I noticed her eagerly scanning the sea of faces. Her eyes seemed to be turned in my direction. I waved my handkerchief, and instinct told me that at last she recognised the point of pink and the flutter of white as me.
Then the stage was cleared of the gentle cats and the wire cage containing Hephaestus was pushed forward by Quast. He showed off the ferocious beast's quality by making it dash itself against the wires, arch its huge back, and shoot out venomous claws. Lola commanded him by sign to open the cage. He approached in simulated terror, Hephaestus uttering blood-curdling howls, and every time he touched the handle of the door Hephaestus sprang at him like a tiger with the tomcat's hateful hiss. At last, amid the laughter of the audience (for this was prearranged business), Quast suddenly refused to obey his mistress any more, and went and sat on the floor in the corner of the stage. Then Lola, with a glance of contempt at him for his poltroonery and a glance of confidence at the audience, opened the cage door and dragged the gigantic and malevolent brute out by the scruff of its neck and held it up like a rabbit, as she had done in Anastasius's cattery.
Suddenly her iron grip seemed to relax; she made one or two ineffectual efforts to retain it and the brute dropped to the ground. She looked at it for a second disconcerted as if she had lost her nerve, and then, in a horrible flash, the beast sprang at her face. She uttered piercing screams. The blood spurted from the ghastly claws. Quick as lightning Quast leapt forward and dragged it off. Lola clapped both hands to her eyes, and reeled and tottered to the wings, where I saw a man's two arms receive her. The last thing I saw was Quast kneeling on the beast on the floor mastering him by some professional clutch. Then there rang out a sharp whistle and the curtain went down with a run.
I rose, sick with horror, barely conscious of the gasping excitement that prevailed around me, and blindly groped my path through the crowded rows of folk towards the door. I had only proceeded half-way when a sudden silence made me turn, and I saw a man addressing the audience from the stage. Apparently it was the manager. He regretted to have to inform the audience that Madame Papadopoulos would not be able to conclude her most interesting performance that evening as she had unfortunately received injuries of a very grave nature. Then he signalled to the orchestra, who crashed into a loud and vulgar march with clanging brass and thundering drum. It sounded so cynically and hideously inhuman that I trampled recklessly over people in my mad rush to the exit.
I found the stage-door, where a knot of the performers were assembled, talking of the horrible accident. I pushed my way shiveringly through them, and tried to rush into the building, but was checked by a burly porter. I explained incoherently in my rusty German. I came for news of Madame Papadopoulos. I was her Verlobter I declared, with a gush of inspiration. Whether he believed that I was her affianced I know not, but he bade me wait, and disappeared with my card. I became at once the object of the curiosity of the loungers. I heard them whispering together as they pointed me out and pitying me. The cat had torn her face away said one woman. I put my hands over my ears so as not to hear. Presently the porter returned with a stout person in authority, who drew me into the stage-doorkeeper's box.
“You are a friend of Frau Papadopoulos?”
“Friend!” I cried. “She is to be my wife. I am in a state of horror and despair. Tell me what has happened.”
Seeing my condition, he laid aside his official manner and became human. It was a dreadful accident, said he. The beast had apparently got its claws in near her eyes; but what were her exact injuries he could not tell, as her face was all over blood and she had fainted with the pain. The doctor was with her. He had telephoned for an ambulance. I was to be quite certain that she would receive every possible attention. He would give my card to the doctor. Meanwhile I was quite at liberty to remain in the box till the ambulance came. I thanked him.
“In the meantime,” said I, “if you can let me have a word with Fraulein Dawkins, her maid, should she be in the theatre, or Quast her attendant, I should be grateful.”
He promised and withdrew. The doorkeeper gave me a wooden chair, and there I sat for an unconscionable time, faint and dizzy with suspense. The chance words I had heard in the crowd, the manager's remark about the claws, the memory of the savage spring at the beloved face made me feel sick. Every now and then, as some doors leading to the stage swung open, I could hear the orchestra and the laughter and applause of the audience. Both Dawkins and Quast visited me. The former was in a helpless state of tears and hand-wringing. As she knew no word of German she could understand nothing that the doctors or others said. Madame was unconscious. Her head was tightly bandaged. That was all the definite information she had.