"Fibi! Vinos! It must be the time for the performance. I think I have
been asleep a long time. Come and dress me."

Neither Fibi nor Vinos moved.

Meanwhile the ineffable blind look of Dea's eyes met those of Ursus. He
started.

"Well!" he cried; "what are you about? Vinos! Fibi! Do you not hear your
mistress? Are you deaf? Quick! the play is going to begin."

The two women looked at Ursus in stupefaction.

Ursus shouted,--

"Do you not hear the audience coming in?--Fibi, dress Dea.--Vinos, take
your tambourine."

Fibi was obedient; Vinos, passive. Together, they personified
submission. Their master, Ursus, had always been to them an enigma.
Never to be understood is a reason for being always obeyed. They simply
thought he had gone mad, and did as they were told. Fibi took down the
costume, and Vinos the tambourine.

Fibi began to dress Dea. Ursus let down the door-curtain of the women's
room, and from behind the curtain continued,--

"Look there, Gwynplaine! the court is already more than half full of
people. They are in heaps in the passages. What a crowd! And you say
that Fibi and Vinos look as if they did not see them. How stupid the
gipsies are! What fools they are in Egypt! Don't lift the curtain from
the door. Be decent. Dea is dressing."

He paused, and suddenly they heard an exclamation,--

"How beautiful Dea is!"

It was the voice of Gwynplaine.

Fibi and Vinos started, and turned round. It was the voice of
Gwynplaine, but in the mouth of Ursus.

Ursus, by a sign which he made through the door ajar, forbade the
expression of any astonishment.

Then, again taking the voice of Gwynplaine,--

"Angel!"

Then he replied in his own voice,--

"Dea an angel! You are a fool, Gwynplaine. No mammifer can fly except
the bats."

And he added,--

"Look here, Gwynplaine! Let Homo loose; that will be more to the
purpose."

And he descended the ladder of the Green Box very quickly, with the
agile spring of Gwynplaine, imitating his step so that Dea could hear
it.

In the court he addressed the boy, whom the occurrences of the day had
made idle and inquisitive.

"Spread out both your hands," said he, in a loud voice.

And he poured a handful of pence into them.

Govicum was grateful for his munificence.

Ursus whispered in his ear,--

"Boy, go into the yard; jump, dance, knock, bawl, whistle, coo, neigh,
applaud, stamp your feet, burst out laughing, break something."

Master Nicless,