The orchestra had grown steadily quieter throughout the dance, the tempo slower. As each veil fell, a group of musicians quit their seats at the side of the stage and went behind the backdrop where they joined the escaping throng. The noise of the exodus became perceptible as the music quietened, but Motherlove commanded the guards’ attention with queenly authority, to say the least.
The fourth veil bared her swanlike neck and creamy shoulders to the vulgar view; the fifth revealed her midriff. The lithe bare belly rolled and pulled taut, then stretched out at length, making the delicately-convoluted navel peek forth from its little hollow of flesh. The arms moved violently with the music, clapping, swinging up above the high-piled hair and chopping down in counterpoint to the musician’s beat. The music slowed to the consistency of honey. Motherlove’s almond fingers touched the hem of the sixth veil.
“Take it off!” the guards chanted. “Take it off! Take it off!” The Tetrarch was limping in circles about the stage, while Captain Frangle had leapt to his feet and was chewing at his moustaches in an agony of concupiscence. Eventually, after a long season of doubt, she took it off. Ah, then what treasures did the Tetrarch’s court behold! The two breasts were like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.
One veil remained, and one musician—Pluto, who played a flute. Motherlove loosened the knot at her hip, but she did not let the veil drop. She lifted it, she lowered it, she moved it laterally—but she did not let it drop. Of a sudden the flute broke off, and Pluto stepped forward to resume his rôle as narrator. “And behold…” he sang out.
“Behold! Behold!” the audience shouted in agreement.
“…the Baptist broke from his bonds and escaped the dungeon of the Tetrarch, and he was at hand to spare the modesty of the Princess Salami from the lustful gaze of Herod.” St Bernard carried in a heavy wooden screen, which unfolded into six sections. The Princess Salami concealed herself modestly behind this screen, one end of which butted against the wing on stage left.
“Off with his head!” I, as the Tetrarch, roared.
“Off with his head!” the audience clamored. One of them, Frangle himself, favoring more direct action, rushed at the screen to tear it down. St Bernard ran downstage to prevent him but tripped over his own loincloth. Only I, Herod Antipasto, could stay Frangle’s lewd intent.
Grasping him roughly by the lapels of his uniform, I began dragging him back to his seat, but Frangle was not to be persuaded even by superior strength. He bit and clawed and tore and grabbed at Herod’s moustaches…
“Major Worthington!” he exclaimed. “What are you about?”
Fortunately the audience was making enough noise to drown out Frangle’s cry of recognition. St Bernard assisted me in dragging the Captain behind the screen, and together we assisted the Captain to become unconscious. As each of the articles of his clothing was thrown out from behind the screen for their inspection, the guards’ laughter grew louder. At last, when the inert officer was carried away in full sight on a stretcher the house came down.
Which bit of extempore business concluded, we returned with relief to the script.
“Desist, villainous Antipasto!” declaimed St Bernard, in his best Verdian style.
“Nay, prepare to meet thy death, fool,” I replied, “for I shall see the precious ruby beneath that final veil or die in the attempt.”
“Help, help,” said Clea peeking out from behind the screen.
“Off with his head!” the guards began again to chant, drowning out the noise that the last pets were making in their escape.
I whipped out the tipped fencing foil from the sheath at my side and laid on. Though my swordsmanship was no better than might have been expected from a bumbling, fat, old Tetrarch, luck was so far on my side that St Bernard was unable to despatch me with the same ease with which he’d disposed of the previous three hundred soldiers. Then, by a clever strategem, I made him circle about so that I was between him and the screen. Then I bolted towards Salami. With a shriek Clea started running away, pressing her single remaining veil (rather larger now than it had been) to her bosom and private parts. She was hindered from running too far ahead of me by the fact that the tip of my foil had become tangled in the corner of this garment. In this manner we circled the courtyard thrice, pursued by St Bernard, who was still tripping over his loincloth and therefore could never quite catch up. The credit for all this choreography must go to Pluto.
At last Motherlove regained the sanctuary of the screen. A mist comes before my eyes and my throat tightens as I am forced again to recall the sight of my mother’s cheerful smile and the friendly wave of her hand as she departed into the wings, and thence backstage. Her rôle was at an end, and she was to follow the rest of the pets now to Needlepoint Hill. Never, never more to see her! How lovely she was in those last moments! How hard to believe that she has left the Earth and me irredeemably behind!
But there was not time then to appreciate the ineffableness of that moment, for St Bernard was laying on thick and fast, switching my padded sides and rump with his lath broadsword. Howling inanely and flailing my foil, I ran about the stage. After a few circuits thus, I ran out at the wings stage left and circled the backdrop that I might reenter on the right. Only Palmino and his four cohorts were left backstage now. The pets were all out. It lacked but fifteen minutes of midnight.
Around the courtyard, back and forth across the stage, then a quick dash behind the screen (where the audience still supposed Clea to be cowering) to catch hold of one end of a trick “veil”, which when pulled out to its full length exceeded the measurements of the stage twice over. But the jokes were wearing thin. Our audience was demanding St Bernard’s head ever more loudly. Hugger-mugger can only go so far.
Then St Bernard, hoping to liven the performance, struck me one blow that didn’t land on the padding but on me. With a cry of authentic pain, I tumbled backward into Herod’s Palace. Samson, in the house of the Philistines, did not enjoy so instant a success. Tremors passed through the eclectic canvas, and there was a minatory, splitting sound. St Bernard pulled me away before it all came down on my head.
Like the rending of the temple veil, Herod’s Palace split neatly down the central seam and fell to the right and to the left, leaving in full view the gaping gates through which the pets had departed. But they did not gape quite so much as I would have liked, and they gaped less every second, as Palmino and his four companions pushed them closed. Pluto’s plan had called for the gate to be closed and locked, but only after St Bernard and I were outside. We rushed forward too late to prevent the outer bolt from sliding into place. Palmino had double-crossed us.
The guards that had comprised the audience of Salami did not take in the full extent of the deception that had been perpetrated upon them quickly enough to prevent St Bernard and me from dashing to the barracks’ door. When they did realize that all the other pets had escaped out the gate, the main body of them forgot the two of us entirely and battered at the locked portal. A contingent of five, however, did pursue us into the barracks and challenged us to stop. Since they were off duty and unarmed, we could afford to ignore their challenge.
It would have been an easy matter then to go up the stairs to Mosely’s room and out the unbarred window and on up to Needlepoint Hill, except that—unfortunately—I tripped.