"I love you--_you_, Jac Hallen." Her arms wound about my neck as she clung. I was trying to cast her off when her fingers lifted a corner of my mask.
"I was afraid you were _not_ Jac Hallen." Her whisper was relieved, and it had suddenly turned swift and vehement. "I am sister to Maida--my name, Alda. I am to warn you. When Tarrano dances with the Red Woman--when they go up on the raised circle--_you drop to the floor_! You understand? Keep down, or the rays might strike you! But be here, inside, and watch. And _afterward_, go quickly to join the Princess and your Elza. You understand?"
She clung to me, with her slim, white body pressed against my cloak. To anyone watching us, she would have seemed merely making love. Her eyes were provocative; her lips mocking me. But she was whispering, _"Drop to the floor when Tarrano dances with the Red Woman--drop or the rays might strike you!"_
Another girl was plucking at me from behind. Alda shouted: "You shall not have him!" and cast me off. But I heard her whisper, _"Come outside for a moment--then come back!"_--and then, aloud, she cried to the other girl, "You shall not have him! He is coming to watch me dive and swim! I am more beautiful than you--you could not win him from me!"
I let them drag me out into the grove by the scented pool.
I realize that I am, by nature, not overly observant; and in those moments, when I stood out there beside the pool, I think I came most forcibly to appreciate how little I habitually observe that which is not readily apparent. An incident now occurred to bring it home to me; and, quite suddenly, a score of things which I had seen during the past two hours at the festival were made plain.
Music, feasting, merry-making, love! In the midst of it all, an undercurrent of events was flowing. Unseen events--but I had partly seen some of them, and now, at last, I began to understand.
In the main hall of the pavilion, midway to its roof, a line of mirrors was placed along the wall facing Tarrano. A hundred small mirrors, side by side. On them were moving images of what was taking place in different parts of the festival--so that Tarrano and the others might see the merry-making, not only in the pavilion, but elsewhere, as well. It was interesting to watch the mirrors--and sometimes amusing. The scene of a gay battle of boats in a nearby lagoon; the diving girls in the pools; a view from the sky above of the whole scene; another, looking upward at the color bombs bursting overhead; a bridge on which a dozen girls were besieged by as many men, who sought to climb upward from their boats underneath, flowers for missiles, and the alcholite fumes which held off the attackers, or, perchance, caused a girl to fall into the water, to be instantly captured.