Presently Anne went out and reappeared as "Master Bobby" of the hills, making love to Gerty in that capacity, through song and dance. Then Gerty was transformed by the addition of a single scarf into a "Highland Maid," and danced a fling; this quite gracefully, to the music of two violins. Exeunt the children and enter "Madam Delia and her pets."The show-woman had laid aside her velvet sack and appeared with bare neck and arms. Over her shoulders hung a rattlesnake fifteen feet long, while a smaller specimen curled from each hand. The reptiles put their cold, triangular faces against hers, they touched her lips, they squirmed around her; she tied their tails together in elastic knots that soon undid; they reared their heads above her black locks till she looked like a stage Medusa, then laid themselves lovingly on her shoulder, and hissed at the audience. Then she lay down on the stage and pillowed her head on the writhing mass. She opened her black bag and took out a tiny brown snake which she placidly transferred to her bosom; then turned to a barrel into which she plunged her arm and drew out a black, hissing coil of mingled heads and tails. Her keen, goodnatured face looked cheerfully at the audience through it all, and took away the feeling of disgust, and something of the excitement of fear.
The lady and the pets retiring, Gerty's hour of glory came. She hated singing and only half enjoyed character dancing, but in posturing she was in her glory. Dressed in soiled tights that showed every movement of her little body, she threw herself upon the stage with a hand-spring, then kissed her hand to the audience, and followed this by a back-somerset. Then she touched her head by anslow effort to her heels; then turned away, put her palms to the ground, raised her heels gradually in the air, and in this inverted position kissed first one hand, then the other, to the spectators. Then she crossed the stage in a series of somersets, then rolled back like a wheel; then held a hoop in her two hands and put her whole slender body through it, limb after limb. Then appeared Monsieur Comstock. He threw a hand-spring and gave her his feet to stand upon; she grasped them with her hands and inverted herself, her feet pointing skyward. Then he resumed the ordinary attitude of rational beings and she lay on her back across his uplifted palms, which supported her neck and feet;then she curled herself backward around his waist, almost touching head and heels. Indeed, whatever the snakes had done to Madam Delia, Gerty seemed possessed with a wish to do to Monsieur Comstock, all but the kissing. Then that eminent foreigner vanished, and the odors of his pipe came faintly through the tattered curtain, while Anne entered to help Gerty in the higher branches.
A double trapeze--just two horizontal bars suspended at different heights by ropes and straps--had been swung from the tent-roof.
Gerty ascended to the upper bar, hung from it by her hand, then by her knees, then by her feet, then sat upon it, leaned slowly backward, suddenly dropped, and as some children in the audience shrieked in terror, she caught by her feet in the side-ropes and came up smiling. It was a part of the play. Then another trapeze was hung, and was set swinging toward the first, and Gerty flung herself in triumph, with varied somersets, from one to the other, while Anne rattled the banjo below and sang, "I fly through the air with the greatest of ease, A daring young man on the flying trapeeze."Then the child stopped to rest, while all hands were clapped and only the unreverberating turf kept the feet from echoing also.
People flocked in from outside, and Madam Delia was kept busy at the door. Then Gerty came down to the lower bar, while Anne ascended the upper, and hung to it solidly by her knees. Thus suspended, she put out her hands to Gerty, who put her feet into them, and hung head-downward. There was a shuddering pause, while the two children clung thus dizzily, but the audience had seen enough of peril to lose all fear.
"Those straps are safe?" asked Stephen of Mr. De Marsan.
"Law bless you, yes," replied that pleasant functionary.
"Comstock's been on 'em,"
Precisely as he spoke one of the straps gave downward a little, and then rested firm; it was not a half-inch, but it jarred the performers.
"Gerty, I'm slipping," cried Anne. "We shall fall!""No, we sha'n't, silly," said the other, quickly. "Hold on.
Comstock, swing me the rope."
Stephen Blake sprang to the stage and swung her the rope by which they had climbed to the upper bar. It fell short and Gerty missed it. Anne screamed, and slipped visibly.
"You can't hold," said Gerty. "Let go my feet. Let me drop.""You'll be killed," called Anne, slipping still more.
"Drop me, I say!" shouted the resolute Gerty, while the whole audience rose in excitement. Instantly the hands of the elder girl opened and down fell Gerty, headforemost, full twelve feet, striking heavily on her shoulder, while Anne, relieved of the weight, recovered easily her position and slipped down into Stephen's arms. She threw herself down beside the little comrade whose presence of mind had saved at least one of them.
"O Gerty, are you killed?" she said.
"I want Delia," gasped the child.
Madam Delia was at her side already, having rushed from the door, where a surging host of boys had already swept in gratis. Gerty writhed in pain. Stephen felt her collar-bone and found it bent like a horseshoe; and she fainted before she could be taken from the stage.
