The Magic Curtain

by Roy J. Snell

  CHAPTER XXIX IT HAPPENED AT MIDNIGHT

  Midnight. The lights of Chinatown were dim as four figures made their wayto a door marked: "For Members Only."

  Jeanne, the foremost of these figures, knew that door. She had entered itbefore. Yet, as her hand touched the heavy handle, she was halted by asudden fear. Her face blanched.

  Close at her side Marjory Dean, artist and supreme interpreter of life asshe was, understood instantly.

  "Come, child. Don't be afraid. They are a simple people, theseOrientals."

  "Yes. Yes, I know." The girl took a tight grip on herself and pressed onthrough the door. Marjory Dean, Angelo and Swen followed.

  At the top of the second stair they were halted by a dark shadow-likefigure.

  "What you want?"

  "Hop Long Lee."

  "You come."

  The man, whose footsteps made not the slightest sound, led the way.

  "Midnight," Jeanne whispered to herself. "Why did I say midnight?" It wasalways so. Ever she was desiring mystery, enchantment at unheard-ofhours. Always, when the hour came she was ready to turn back.

  "The magic curtain." She started. A second dark figure was beside her."You wished to see?"

  "Y-yes."

  "You shall see. I am Hop Long Lee.

  "And these are your friends? Ah, yes! Come! You will see!" His handtouched Jeanne's. She started back. It was cold, like marble.

  They followed in silence. They trod inch-thick rugs. There came no soundsave the tok-tok-tok of some great, slow clock off there somewhere in thedark.

  "I am not afraid," Jeanne told herself. "I am not going to be afraid. Ihave seen all this before."

  Yet, when she had descended the narrow, winding stairs, when a small,Oriental rug was offered her in lieu of a chair, her limbs gave waybeneath her and she dropped, limp as a rag, to the comforting softness ofthe rug.

  That which followed will remain painted on the walls ofnever-to-be-forgotten memories.

  Figures, dark, creeping figures, appeared in this dimly lighted room.

  Once again the curtain, a red and glowing thing, crept across the stage.She gripped Marjory Dean's hand hard.

  Some figures appeared before the curtain. Grotesque figures. They dancedas she had imagined only gnomes and elves might dance. A vast,many-colored dragon crept from the darkness. With a mighty lashing oftail, he swallowed the dancers, then disappeared into the darkness fromwhich he had come.

  "Oh!" Jeanne breathed. Even Marjory Dean, who had witnessed many forms ofmagic, was staring straight ahead.

  A single figure appeared on the stage, one all in white. The figure worea long, flowing robe. The face was white.

  From somewhere strange music began to whisper. It was like wind sighingin the trees, the trees in the graveyard at midnight. And this wasmidnight.

  Next instant Jeanne leaped straight into the air. Someone had struck agong, an Oriental gong.

  Mortified beyond belief, she settled back in her place.

  And now the magic curtain, like some wall of fire, burned a fiercer red.From the shadows the dragon thrust out his head once more.

  The white-faced figure ceased dancing. The wind in the trees sang on. Thefigure, appearing to see the dragon, drew back in trembling fright.

  He approached the fiery curtain, yet his back was ever toward it. Therewas yet a space between the two sections of the curtain. The figure,darting toward this gap, was caught in the flames.

  "Oh!" Jeanne breathed. "He will die in flames!"

  Marjory Dean pressed her hand hard.

  Of a sudden the floor beneath the white figure opened and swallowed himup.

  Jeanne looked for the dragon. It was gone. The fiery red of the curtainwas turning to an orange glow.

  "Come. You have seen." It was Hop Long Lee who spoke. Once again hismarble-cold hand touched Jeanne's hand.

  Ten minutes later the four figures were once more in the street.

  "Midnight in an Oriental garden," Angelo breathed.

  "That," breathed Marjory Dean, "is drama, Oriental drama. Give it a humantouch and it could be made supreme."

  "You--you think it could be made into a thing of beauty?"

  "Surely. Most certainly, my child. Nothing could be more unique."

  "Come," whispered Jeanne happily. "Come with me. The night is young. Theday is for sleep. Come. We will have coffee by my fire. Then we willtalk, talk of all this. We will create an opera in a night. Is it notso?"

  And it was so.

  A weird bit of opera it was that they produced that night. Even theatmosphere in which they worked was fantastic. Candle light, a flickeringfire that now and then leaped into sudden conflagration, mellow-tonedgongs provided by the little lady of the cameo; such were the elementsthat added to the fantastic reality of the unreal.

  In this one-act drama the giant paper dragon remained. The flamingcurtain, the setting for some weird Buddhist ceremony, was to furnish themotif. A flesh and blood person, whose part was to be played by MarjoryDean, replaced the thing of white cloth and paper that had danced a weirddance, and became entangled in the fiery curtain. Oriental mystery, thedeep hatred of some types of yellow men for the white race, these enteredinto the story.

  In the plot the hero (Marjory Dean), a white boy, son of a rich trader,caught by the lure of mystery, adventure and tales of the magic curtain,volunteers to take the place of a rich Chinese youth who is to endure thetrial by fire.

  A very ugly old Chinaman, who holds the white boy in high regard,learning of his plans and realizing his peril, prepares the trap-door inthe floor beneath the magic curtain.

  When the hour comes for the trial by fire, the white boy, being ignorantof the secrets that will save him, appears doomed as the flames of thecurtain surround him, consuming the very mask from his face and leavinghim there, his identity revealed in stark reality.

  Then as the rich Chinaman, who has planned the trial, realizes thecatastrophe that must befall his people if the rich youth is burned todeath, prepares to cast himself into the flames, the floor opens toswallow the boy up, and the curtain fades.

  There is not space here to tell of the motives of love, hate, pride andpatriotism that lay back of this bit of drama. Enough that when it wasdone Marjory Dean pronounced it the most perfect bit of opera yetproduced in America.

  "And you will be our diva?" Jeanne was all eagerness.

  "I shall be proud to."

  "Then," Angelo's eyes shone, "then we are indeed rich once more."

  "Yes. Your beautiful rugs, your desk, your ancient friend the piano, theyshall all come back to you." In her joy Jeanne could have embraced him.As it was she wrung his hand in parting, and thanked him over and overfor his part in this bit of work and adventure.

  "The music," she whispered to Swen, "you will do it?"

  "It is as well as done. The wind whispering in the graveyard pines atmidnight. This is done by reeds and strings. And there are the gongs, thedeep melodious gongs of China. What more could one ask?"

  What more, indeed?

  "And now," said Florence, after she had, some hours later, listened toJeanne's recital of that night's affairs, "now that it is all over, whatis there in it all for you?"

  "For me?" Jeanne spread her hands wide. "Nothing. Nothing at all."

  "Then why--?"

  "Only this," Jeanne interrupted her, "you said once that one found thebest joy in life by helping others. Well then," she laughed a littlelaugh, "I have helped a little.

  "And you shall see, my time will come."

  Was she right? Does one sometimes serve himself best by serving others?We shall see.