In single file they entered the rotunda. The building was not crowded. Although midday a rusty chandelier was lighted. The Holy Yowlers believed in mystery. The gas-jets were to illuminate the collection platter, nothing more. A murmur greeted them and a solitary female voice shrilled: "He comes. The High Holiness comes. Bless the name of the Holy Yowlers." This signalled an outburst of yells as the black pontiff conducted his guests to the platform where were several wooden benches and a table. After looking with unaffected longing at the white girl, who mocked him, Brother Rainbow struck the mystic gong and harangued his flock. "I'se de new prophet of de Lord. Who follows me will see de Lord. Bless de name of de Holy Yowlers. Let us dance." Instantly the audience was in an uproar. The howling began. Whirling in pairs or alone, men and women behaved as if possessed by devils. Ulick had seen camp-meeting revivals, yet they were a mere hymn carnival compared with this orgy of sound and motion. And as a Southern girl the sight could not have been altogether unfamiliar to his companion, who, her face pale, held his arm as if seeking protection. He pressed that arm and he felt the pressure returned. Roarin' Nell lay outstretched on a bench. She was red in the face, her eyes closed. Brother Rainbow banged his gong, his shrewd eyes showing their whites, a sinister grin on his noseless face.
Suddenly he commanded: "Lights out!" and darkness supervened. The whirling and the howling ceased. Ulick was pinioned by a pair of arms, violently embraced and pushed to the floor. As his knees gave way, a moaning cry in his ear made his blood freeze. He tried to shake off the importunate lascivious embrace of a woman. In vain. The moaning ceased. From the pit below came a rutilant groaning and sharp exclamations of pain and ecstasy. Scrambling to his knees Ulick put out his hands and seized a figure. It relaxed in his arms and then came in stentorian tones: "Lights!" In the dim atmosphere he saw that he held a fainting woman, Miss Richmond. Nell sprawled on the floor next to them like a drunken drab: "Get us out of here, quick, you damned scoundrel or I'll shoot you full of holes." Ulick made a movement. But the serenity of the grand Panjandrum was undisturbed. He calmly viewed the room with its recumbent and exhausted men and women and slowly answered:
"De young lady will be all right in a moment. She has had true religion. She is now one of de Holy Yowlers." Outside the glaring sunlight stabbed his eyeballs, yet it seemed a black sun. Supporting the limp girl he set her at the edge of an old well in the yard. The dipper was in the bucket and he scooped some water which he gave her. Her olive skin was drawn and yellow, her lips a sanguinary purple. Her great eyes were narrowed to slits and their hazel fire was like a cat's eyes in the dark. She looked straight in front of her as if she were watching a horrible play. He almost felt sorry for the irreparable. Was it his fault? What extraordinary caprice of the gods had guided his footsteps to this spot, there to meet and mingle with a girl he had never seen before … and then the devilish whisky … did they know what they were doing? The girl stirred. "Darling," he whispered, "it can't be helped. I love you. Let's go away … to New York." She started as if stung. "You beast! … " she cried, and "you beast!" With the words came a blow in the face that blinded him and she instantly fled away. It was like a bad dream. In the rotunda the Holy Yowlers were howling their pious noise punctured by the gong-strokes of Brother Rainbow. I've witnessed the birth of a new religion, muttered Ulick Invern, as he made his way across the low-lying Franconian hills, misted by the approach of a peaceful September evening. …
THE THIRD GATE
At the third gate, the warder stripped her; he took off the precious stones that adorn her neck. …
I
Alfred Stone spat bitterly on the floor of his bedroom—which was also his living-room and library. His cigarette tasted like toasted rag, and in his mouth there was scum. Brown, brown and yellow, he told himself. This boozing till all hours in the morning must be stopped. A hard night last night down at Lüchow's, but the crowd left there at half past one when they couldn't get anything more and went over to Andy's on Second Avenue and played poker-dice till six. No wonder I feel rotten, said Stone. It was past midday. He swallowed a cup of strong tea which he made with trembling hands. He had a concert to "cover," a concert at Mendelssohn Hall, but first he must go to his office at the "Daily Chanticleer." He looked at his image in the glass. His skin was dingy, discolored, his eyes unnaturally dilated. A hard night and a hard face. He lighted a cigarette. Tea and tobacco soon steadied his nerves. He was in a moody humour. What's the use of anything? was its keynote. The bookmakers had hit him hard the day before; hence the drinking bout with a gang of chaps for whom he didn't care a rap. Ulick had been with them at the start, had eaten a hearty dinner, but, as usual, dodged away when the heavy drinking began. Smart Ulick. But a bloody blighter when it came to sticking. However, I can't blame him, philosophically added Stone. Ulick doesn't drink or smoke. Why should he tag after a band of thirsty ruffians like ours. He's girl-mad, that's what he is. And why the sudden interest in Easter Brandès?
Her name gave him a new point of departure. That young woman was too shrewd by half. Too ambitious, uncannily so. The soul of a pawnbroker, he had accused her of having. Young, not bad looking—he was critical this day—but coldly selfish; what's worse, she didn't mind letting you see how indifferent she was.
She would make a man run himself to death and take it for granted. But he was through. I bring her to the Cosmopolitaine, introduce her to the right set, and she seems to think it only natural. Not a word of thanks, if you please. She doesn't mind that stinker Lapoul messing over her, never turns a hair. And yesterday I take her to Ash, and because she hears some wholesome truths she vents her spite on me at dinner last night. What do you think of it? In the violence of his outraged dignity Stone left the table and sauntered to the window. Ugh! he groaned. It was raining and the prospect of going out to listen to a dull piano-recital—or was it some screecher of a soprano—gave him the blues worse than ever. What a rotten life, he meditated. I feel like a chicken with the pip. Oh, Lord, how long? Well, Frida Ash, the good old girl, certainly did lay down the law to Easter. A promising career. But work, work like a galley-slave for at least four years; maybe five. I'll do it, cries Easter. A bargain, says Frida. Easter gets two or three lessons a week and in return is to be accompanist for Ash. That's a nice job, I don't think. Play accompaniments all day for a set of imbecile amateurs. But what can she do? She has no money. She is too chilly to earn any by approved horizontal methods.
He puffed a fresh cigarette. Am I fond of the girl? he asked himself. No, not by a long shot, but she will be a fine morsel for some lucky chap—with money. Oh yes lashins' and lavins' of money she'll want. What a curious bird she is, just like Invern. She tried to pump me about him. Is she mashed on him? Who knows? I fancy the lady didn't much like vacating his rooms. She asked me, with such a funny look in her eye: "How is it your friend is in town, lecturing at the Conservatoire, and all that. Yet he doesn't live in his own apartment?" And what a thunder-cloud expression she wore when I carelessly explained: "Oh you must know, Ulick is a bit of a runabout. I suppose he has something new on his staff. He usually disappears at such times, till the period of disillusionment; then he returns to the home-nest, pale but pious. He's a queer bird also, is Ulick." Aha! the girl positively became discontented. I have to laugh. No, she won't do for me. Her eyes are too secret, too calculating, and her ears too tiny—but they are pretty ears all the same. Heigho! I'll dress and go to my little hell hall. The man who invented musical criticism should have been evirated. Ha! that's a good word, evirated! I'll use it in my notice tomorrow. Herr Slopstein should be evirated for the manner in which he played Beethoven. …
II
The huge auditorium was in twilight; with difficulty could be discerned a few isolated groups. The high-light was in the orchestral pit full of chatting men. Seidl had not yet appeared. A punctual conductor; he must have been detained this morning and the rehearsal had run on a snag. In the tepid atmosphere, Easter, her eyes greedy for the forthcoming spectacle, a novel one to her, sat with Stone. As critic of a powerful morning newspaper he had the privilege of bringing friends to any rehearsal he wished. This particular affair promised to be peculiarly interesting. Lilli Lehmann, the divine Lilli, Stone called her, Jean and Edouard de Reszke, Marie Brema, Anton Van Rooy—what a Tristan and Isolde cast, with Anton Seidl at the conductor's helm! Easter had never heard Tristan