THE SECRET PLACE
Petite Jeanne was a person of courage. Times there had been when, as a
child living with the gypsies of France, she had believed that she saw a
ghost. At the heart of black woods, beneath a hedge on a moonless night
some white thing lying just before her had moved in the most
blood-chilling fashion. Never, on such an occasion, had Jeanne turned to
flee. Always, with knees trembling, heart in her throat, she had marched
straight up to the "ghost." Always, to be sure, the "ghost" had vanished,
but Jeanne had gained courage by such adventures. So now, as she glided
down the soft-carpeted, circular staircase with the heavy odor of incense
rising before her and the play of eerie green lights all about her, she
took a strong grip on herself, bade her fluttering heart be still, and
steadily descended into the mysterious unknown.
The scene that met her gaze as at last she reached those lower levels,
was fantastic in the extreme. A throng of little brown people, dressed in
richest silks, their faces shining strangely in the green light, sat in
small circles on rich Oriental rugs.
Scattered about here and there all over the room were low pedestals and
on these pedestals rested incense burners. Fantastic indeed were the
forms of these burners: ancient dragons done in copper, eagles of brass
with wings spread wide, twining serpents with eyes of green jade, and
faces, faces of ugly men done in copper. These were everywhere.
As Jeanne sank silently to a place on the floor, she felt that some great
event in the lives of these people was about to transpire. They did not
speak; they whispered; and once, then again, and yet again, their eyes
strayed expectantly to a low stage, built across the far end of the room.
"What is to happen?" the girl asked herself. She shuddered. To forget
that she was in a secret place at the very heart of a Chinese temple
built near the center of a great city--this was impossible.
"I shouldn't be here," she chided herself. "Something may happen to me. I
may be detained. I may not be able to reach the Opera House in time. And
then--"
She wondered what that would mean. She realized with a sort of shock that
she was strangely indifferent to it all. Truth was, events had so shaped
themselves that she was at that moment undecided where her own best good
lay. She had ventured something, had begun playing the role of a boy. She
had done this that she might gain a remote end. The end now seemed very
remote indeed. The perils involved in reaching that end had increased
four-fold.
"Why go back at all?" she asked herself. "As Pierre I can die very
comfortably. As Petite Jeanne I can live on. And no one will ever know. I
am--"
Her thoughts were interrupted, not by a sound nor a movement, but by a
sudden great silence that had fallen, like a star from the sky at night,
upon the assembled host of little people.
Petite Jeanne was not a stranger to silence. She had stood at the edge of
a clearing before an abandoned cabin, far from the home of any living man
just as the stars were coming out, when a hush had fallen over all; not a
leaf had stirred, not a bird note had sounded, and the living, breathing
world had seemed far away. She had called that silence.
She had drifted with idle paddle in a canoe far out upon the glimmering
surface of Lake Huron. There, alone, with night falling, she had listened
until every tiniest wavelet had gone to rest. She had heard the throb of
a motor die away in the distance. She had felt rather than heard the
breath of air stirred by the last lone seagull on his way to some rocky
ledge for rest. She had at last listened for the faintest sound, then had
whispered:
"This is silence."
It may have been, but never had a silence impressed her as did the
silence of this moment as, seated there on the floor, far from her
friends, an uninvited guest to some weird ceremony, she awaited with
bated breath that which was to come.
She had not long to wait. A long tremulous sigh, like the tide sweeping
across the ocean at night, passed over the motionless throng; a sigh,
that was all.
But Petite Jeanne? She wished to scream, to rise and dash out of the room
crying, "Fire! Fire!"
She did not scream. Something held her back. Perhaps it was the sigh, and
perhaps the silence.
The thing that was happening was weird in the extreme. On the stage a
curtain was slowly, silently closing. No one was near to close it. It
appeared endowed with life. This was not all. The curtain was aflame.
Tongues of fire darted up its folds. One expected this fire to roar. It
did not. Yet, as the little French girl, with heart in throat and finger
nails cutting deep, sat there petrified, flames raced up the curtain
again and yet again. And all the time, in great, graceful folds, it was
gliding, silently gliding from the right and the left.
"Soon it will close," she told herself. "And then--"
Only one thought saved Jeanne from a scream that would have betrayed her;
not a soul in that impassive throng had moved or spoken. It was borne in
upon her that here was some form of magic which she did not know.
"It's a magic curtain." These words, formed by her lips were not so much
as whispered.
But now from a dark corner of the stage a figure appeared. A weird
stooping figure he was, clothed all in white. He moved toward the curtain
with slow, halting steps. He seemed desirous of passing between the folds
of the curtain before the opening; yet a great fear appeared to hold him
back.
At this moment there came to Jeanne's mind words from a very ancient
book:
"_Draw not nigh hither. Put off thy shoes from thy feet._"
"The burning bush!" she whispered. "It burned but was not consumed; a
magic bush. This is a magic curtain."
"_Remove thy shoes._"
She seemed to hear someone repeat these words.
Her hands went to her feet. They were fully clad. A quick glance to right
and left assured her that not another person in the room wore shoes.
"My shoes will betray me!" Consternation seized her. One look backward, a
stealthy creeping toward the soft-carpeted stair, another stealthy move
and she was on her way out.
But would she make it? Her heart was in her throat. A quarter of the way
up she was obliged to pause. She was suffocating with fear.
"I must be calm," she whispered. "I must! I must!" Of a sudden life
seemed a thing of solemn beauty. Somehow she must escape that she might
live on and on.
Once again she was creeping upward. Did a hand touch her foot? Was
someone preparing to seize her? With an effort, she looked down. No one
was following. Every eye was glued upon the magic curtain. The curtain
was closed. The white-robed figure had vanished. What had happened? Had
he passed through? Had the curtain consumed him? She shuddered. Then,
summoning all her courage, she leaped up the stairs, glided silently
across the room above, and passed swiftly on until she gained the open
air.
Then how she sped away! Never had she raced so swiftly and silently as
now.
It was some time before she realized how futile was her flight. No one
pursued her.
In time she was able to still her wildly beating heart. Then she turned
toward home.
Once she stopped dead in her tracks to exclaim: "The magic curtain! Oh!
Why did I run away?"
Then, as another mood seized her, she redoubled her pace. Florence, she
hoped, awaited her with a roaring fire, a cup of hot chocolate and a good
scolding.