stes. To stop would mean--God! what would it mean? These were no
mortal steps that crowded upon his sonorous trail. His fingers flew
over the keys as he finished the scurrying tempests of tone. Again the
first swaying refrain, and Pobloff heard the invisible multitude of feet
pause in the night, as if waiting the moment when the Ballade would
cease. He quivered; the surprises and terrors were telling upon his
well-seasoned nerves.

Still he sped on, fearing the tremendous outburst at the close, where
Chopin throws overboard his soul, and with blood-red sails signals the
hellish _Willis_, the Lamias of the lake, to his side. Ah, if Pobloff
could but thus portion his soul as hostage to the infernal host that now
hemmed him in on all sides! Riding over the black and white rocks of his
keyboard, he felt as if in the clutches of an unknown force. He
discerned death in the distance--death and the unknown horror--and was
powerless to resist. Still the galloping of unseen feet, horrible, naked
flesh, that clattered and scraped the earth; the panting, hoarse and
subdued, of a mighty pack, whose thirst for destruction, for revenge,
was unslaked. And always the same trampling of human feet! Were they
human? Did not resilient bones tell the tale of brutes viler than men?
The glimmering lights seemed cowed, as they sobbed in vacuity and slowly
expired.

Pobloff no longer asked himself what it meant; he was become a maniac,
pursued by deathless devils. He could have flown to the end of the
universe in this Ballade; but, at last, his heart cracking, head
bursting, face livid, overtaken by the Footsteps of the Missing, he
smashed both fists upon the keys and fell forward despairingly....

* * * * *

... The gigantic, noseless negro, the grand vizier himself, sternly
regarded the prince, who stood, torch in hand, near the shattered
pianoforte. The dumb spoke:--

"Let us hope, Exalted Highness, that your masquerades and mystifications
are over forever. To-day's prankish sport may put us to trouble for a
satisfactory explanation." He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of
the prostrate composer. "And hasheesh sometimes maddens for a lifetime!"
He lightly touched the drugged Pobloff with his enormous foot.

The youthful runaway ashamedly lowered his head--in reality he adored
music with all the fulness of his cruel, faunlike nature.

XV

THE CURSORY LIGHT

To this day Pinton could never