The Secret Tomb by Maurice Leblanc (i like reading .txt) 📕

And thereupon, pushing aside her admirers, and addressing the astonished crowd, she made the announcement:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honor to inform you that the performance of Dorothy’s Circus is about to take place. After exhibitions of marksmanship, choregraphic displays, then feats of strength and skill and tumbling, on foot, on horseback, on the earth and in the air. Fireworks, regattas, motor races, bullfights, train holdups, all will be on view there. It is about to begin, ladies and gentlemen.”

From that moment Dorothy was all movement, liveliness, and gayety. Saint-Quentin had marked off a sufficiently large circle, in front of the door of the caravan, with a rope supported by stakes. Round this arena, in which chairs were reserved for the people of the château, the spectators were closely packed together on benches and flights of steps and on anything they could lay their hands on.

And Dorothy danced. First of all on a rope, stretched between two posts. She bounced like a shuttlecock which the battledore catches and drives yet higher; or again she lay down and balanced herself on the rope as on a hammock, walked backwards and forwards, turned and saluted right and left; then leapt to the earth and began to dance.

An extraordinary mixture of all the dances, in which nothing seemed studied or purposed, in which all the movements and attitudes appeared unconscious and to spring from a series of inspirations of the moment. By turns she was the London dancing-girl, the Spanish dancer with her castanets, the Russian who bounds and twirls, or, in the arms of Saint-Quentin, a barbaric creature dancing a languorous tango.

And every time all that she needed was just a movement, the slightest movement, which changed the hang of her shawl, or the way her hair was arranged, to become from head to foot a Spanish, or Russian, or English, or Argentine girl. And all the while she was an incomparable vision of grace and charm, of harmonious and healthy youth, of pleasure and modesty, of extreme but measured joy.

Castor and Pollux, bent over an old drum, beat with their fingers a muffled, rhythmical accompaniment. Speechless and motionless the spectators gazed and admired, spellbound by such a wealth of fantasy and the multitude of images which passed before their eyes. At the very moment when they were regarding her as a guttersnipe turning cartwheels, she suddenly appeared to them in the guise of a lady with a long train, flirting her fan and dancing the minuet. Was she a child or a woman? Was she under fifteen or over twenty?

She cut short the clamor of applause which burst forth when she came to a sudden stop, by springing on to the roof of the caravan, and crying, with an imperious gesture:

“Silence! The Captain is waking up!”

There was, behind the box, a long narrow basket, in the shape of a closed sentry-box. Raising it by one end, she half opened the cover and cried:

“Now, Captain Montfaucon, you’ve had a good sleep, haven’t you? Come now, Captain, we’re a bit behindhand with our exercises. Make up for it, Captain!”

She opened the top of the basket wide and disclosed in a kind of cradle, very comfortable, a little boy of seven or eight, with golden curls and red cheeks, who yawned prodigiously. Only half awake, he stretched out his hands to Dorothy who clasped him to her bosom and kissed him very tenderly.

“Baron Saint-Quentin,” she called out. “Catch hold of the Captain. Is his bread and jam ready? Captain Montfaucon will continue the performance by going through his drill.”

Captain Montfaucon was the comedian of the troupe. Dressed in an old American uniform, his tunic dragged along the ground, and his corkscrew trousers had their bottoms rolled up as high as his knees. This made a costume so hampering that he could not walk ten steps without falling full length. Captain Montfaucon provided the comedy by this unbroken series of falls and the impressive air with which he picked himself up again. When, furnished with a whip, his other hand useless by reason of the slice of bread and jam it held, his cheeks smeared with jam, he put the unbridled One-eyed Magpie through his performance, there was one continuous roar of laughter.

“Mark time!” he ordered. “Right-about-turn!⁠ ⁠… Attention, One-eye’ Magpie!”⁠—he could never be induced to say “One-eyed”⁠—“And now the goose-step. Good, One-eye’ Magpie.⁠ ⁠… Perfect!”

One-eyed Magpie, promoted to the rank of circus horse, trotted round in a circle without taking the slightest notice of the captain’s orders, who, for his part, stumbling, falling, picking himself up, recovering his slice of bread and jam, did not bother for a moment about whether he was obeyed or not. It was so funny, the phlegm of the little man, and the undeviating course of the beast, that Dorothy herself was forced to laugh with a laughter that redoubled the gayety of the spectators. They saw that the young girl, in spite of the fact that the performance was undoubtedly repeated every day, always took the same delight in it.

“Excellent, Captain,” she cried to encourage him. “Splendid! And now, captain, we’ll act ‘The Gipsy’s Kidnapping,’ a drama in a brace of shakes. Baron Saint-Quentin, you’ll be the scoundrelly kidnaper.”

Uttering frightful howls, the scoundrelly kidnaper seized her and set her on One-eyed Magpie, bound her on her, and jumped up behind her. Under the double burden the mare staggered slowly off, while Baron Saint-Quentin yelled:

“Gallop! Hell for leather!”

The Captain quietly put a cap on a toy gun and aimed at the scoundrelly kidnaper.

The cap cracked; Saint-Quentin fell off; and in a transport of gratitude the rescued gypsy covered her deliverer with kisses.

There were other scenes in which Castor and Pollux took part. All were carried through with the same brisk liveliness. All were caricatures, really humorous, of what diverts or charms us, and revealed a lively imagination, powers of observation of the first order, a keen sense of the picturesque and the ridiculous.

“Captain Montfaucon, take a bag