a_--picked up the fatal
handkerchief--spoke a line here and there as Shakespeare wills she
should, and bided my time as all _Emilias_ must. Now I had noticed that
many _Emilias_ when they gave the alarm--cried out their "Murder!
Murder!" against all the noise of the tolling bells, and came back upon
the stage spent, and without voice or breath to finish their big scene
with, and people thought them weak in consequence. A long hanging bar of
steel is generally used for the alarm, and blows struck upon it send
forth a vibrating clangor that completely fills a theatre. I made an
agreement with the prompter that he was not to strike the bar until I
held up my hand to him. Then he was to strike one blow each time I raised
my hand, and when I threw up both hands he was to raise Cain, until I was
on the stage again. So with throat trained by much shouting, when in the
last act I cried:

"I care not for thy sword; I'll make thee known,
Though I lost twenty lives."

I turned, and crying:

"Help! help, ho! help!"

ran off shouting,

"The Moor has killed my mistress!"

then, taking breath, gave the long-sustained, ever-rising, blood-curdling
cry:

"Murder! Murder! Murder!"

One hand up, and one long clanging peal of a bell.

"Murder! Murder! Murder!"

One hand up and bell.

"Murder! Murder! Murder!"

Both hands up, and pandemonium broken loose--and, oh, joy! the audience
applauding furiously.

"One--two--three--four," I counted with closed lips, then with a fresh
breath I burst upon the stage, followed by armed men, and with one last
long full-throated cry of "Murder! the Moor has killed my mistress!"
stood waiting for the applause to let me go on. A trick? yes, a small
trick--a mere pretence to more breath than I really had, but it aroused
the audience, it touched their imagination. They saw the horror-stricken
woman racing through the night--waking the empty streets to life by that
ever-thrilling cry of "Murder!" A trick if you like, but on the stage
"success" justifies the means, and that night, under cover of the
applause of the house, there came to me a soft clapping of hands and in
muffled tones the words: "Bravo--bravo!" from _Othello_.

When the curtain had fallen and Mr. Davenport had been before it, he
came to me and holding out his hands, said: "You splendid-lunged
creature--I want to apologize to you for the thoughts I harbored against
you this morning." I s