The Slayer of Souls | Page 9

the big glass bubble full of tiny fish,
picked it up and tossed it aside. For a moment it apparently floated
there in space like a soap-bubble. Changing rainbow tints waxed and
waned on the surface, growing deeper and more gorgeous until the
floating globe glowed scarlet, then suddenly burst into flame and
vanished. And only a strange, sweet perfume lingered in the air.

But she gave her perplexed audience no time to wonder; she had seated
herself on the stage and was already swiftly busy unfolding a white veil
with which she presently covered herself, draping it over her like a tent.
The veil seemed to be translucent; she was apparently visible seated
beneath it. But the veil turned into smoke, rising into the air in a thin
white cloud; and there, where she had been seated, was a statue of
white stone the image of herself!--in all the frail springtide of early
adolescence--a white statue, cold, opaque, exquisite in its sculptured
immobility.
There came, the next moment, a sound of distant thunder; flashes
lighted the blank curtain; and suddenly a vein of lightning and a sharper
peal shattered the statue to fragments.
There they lay, broken bits of her own sculptured body, glistening in a
heap behind the footlights. Then each fragment began to shimmer with
a rosy internal light of its own, until the pile of broken marble glowed
like living coals under thickening and reddening vapours. And,
presently, dimly perceptible, there she was in the flesh again, seated in
the fiery centre of the conflagration, stretching her arms luxuriously,
yawning, seemingly awakening from refreshing slumber, her eyes
unclosing to rest with a sort of confused apology upon her astonished
audience.
As she rose to her feet nothing except herself remained on the stage--no
debris, not a shred of smoke, not a spark.
She came down, then, across an inclined plank into the orchestra
among the audience.
In the aisle seat nearest her sat Victor Cleves. His business was to be
there that evening. But she didn't know that, knew nothing about
him--had never before set eyes on him.
At her gesture of invitation he made a cup of both his hands. Into these
she poured a double handful of unset diamonds--or what appeared to be
diamonds--pressed her own hands above his for a second--and the

diamonds in his palms had become pearls.
These were passed around to people in the vicinity, and finally returned
to Mr. Cleves, who, at her request, recovered the heap of pearls with
both his hands, hiding them entirely from view.
At her nod he uncovered them. The pearls had become emeralds. Again,
while he held them, and without even touching him, she changed them
into rubies. Then she turned away from him, apparently forgetting that
he still held the gems, and he sat very still, one cupped hand over the
other, while she poured silver coins into a woman's gloved hands,
turned them into gold coins, then flung each coin into the air, where it
changed to a living, fragrant rose and fell among the audience.
Presently she seemed to remember Cleves, came back down the aisle,
and under his close and intent gaze drew from his cupped hands, one by
one, a score of brilliant little living birds, which continually flew about
her and finally perched, twittering, on her golden headdress--a
rainbow-crest of living jewels.
As she drew the last warm, breathing little feathered miracle from
Cleves's hands and released it, he said rapidly under his breath: "I want
a word with you later. Where?"
She let her clear eyes rest on him for a moment, then with a shrug so
slight that it was perceptible, perhaps, only to him, she moved on along
the inclined way, stepped daintily over the footlights, caught fire,
apparently, nodded to a badly rattled audience, and sauntered off,
burning from head to foot.
What applause there was became merged in a dissonant instrumental
outburst from the orchestra; the great god Jazz resumed direction, the
mindless audience breathed freely again as the curtain rose upon a
familiar, yelling turbulence, including all that Gotham really
understands and cares for--legs and noise.
Victor Cleves glanced up at the stage, then continued to study the name
of the girl on the programme. It was featured in rather pathetic solitude

under "Entr'acte." And he read further: "During the entr'acte Miss
Tressa Norne will entertain you with several phases of Black Magic.
This strange knowledge was acquired by Miss Norne from the
Yezidees, among which almost unknown people still remain
descendants of that notorious and formidable historic personage know
in the twelfth century as The Old Man of the Mountain--or The Old
Man of Mount Alamout.
"The pleasant profession of this historic individual was assassination;
and some historians now believe that genuine occult