"

Down from his brow there swept a faint hue of colour, and, for a breath,
his eyes closed tenderly with hers. But he straightway gathered back
his look again, his body shrank, not rudely, from her fingers, and he
absently said: "I am old-in years the father of the world. It is a man's
life gone since, at Genoa, she laid her fingers on my breast like that.
... These things can be no more... until the North hath its summer
again; and I stand young--the Master--upon the summits of my renown."

The girl drew slowly back. Lazenby was muttering under his breath now;
he was overwhelmed by this change in Wine Face. He had been impressed to
awe by the Tall Master's music, but he was piqued, and determined not to
give in easily. He said sneeringly that Maskelyne and Cooke in music had
come to life, and suggested a snake-dance.

The Tall Master heard these things, and immediately he turned to Lazenby
with an angry look on his face. His brows hung heavily over the dull
fire of his eyes; his hair itself seemed like Medusa's, just quivering
into savage life; the fingers spread out white and claw-like upon the
strings as he curved his violin to his chin, whereof it became, as it
were, a piece. The bow shot out and down upon the instrument with a
great clangour. There eddied into a vast arena of sound the prodigious
elements of war. Torture rose from those four immeasurable chords;
destruction was afoot upon them; a dreadful dance of death supervened.

Through the Chief Factor's mind there flashed--though mechanically,
and only to be remembered afterwards--the words of a schoolday poem. It
shuttled in and out of the music:

"Wheel the wild dance,
While lightnings glance,
And thunders rattle loud;
And call the brave to bloody grave,
To sleep without a shroud."

The face of the player grew old and drawn. The skin was wrinkled, but
shone, the hair spread white, the nose almost met the chin, the mouth
was all malice. It was old age with vast power: conquest volleyed from
the fingers.

Shon McGann whispered aves, aching with the sound; the Chief Factor
shuddered to his feet; Lazenby winced and drew back to the wall, putting
his hand before his face as though the sounds were striking him; the old
Indian covered his head with his arms upon the floor. Wine Face knelt,
her face all grey, her fingers lacing and interlacing with pain. Only
Pierre sat with masterful stillness, his eyes n