e is no need for them now. Ilium is down. Iphigenia is
slain. Cassandra is a prisoner in his outer halls. The king of men (it
is Colonel Crawley, who, indeed, has no notion about the sack of Ilium
or the conquest of Cassandra), the anax andron is asleep in his chamber
at Argos. A lamp casts the broad shadow of the sleeping warrior
flickering on the wall--the sword and shield of Troy glitter in its
light. The band plays the awful music of Don Juan, before the statue
enters.

Aegisthus steals in pale and on tiptoe. What is that ghastly face
looking out balefully after him from behind the arras? He raises his
dagger to strike the sleeper, who turns in his bed, and opens his broad
chest as if for the blow. He cannot strike the noble slumbering
chieftain. Clytemnestra glides swiftly into the room like an
apparition--her arms are bare and white--her tawny hair floats down her
shoulders--her face is deadly pale--and her eyes are lighted up with a
smile so ghastly that people quake as they look at her.

A tremor ran through the room. "Good God!" somebody said, "it's Mrs.
Rawdon Crawley."

Scornfully she snatches the dagger out of Aegisthus's hand and advances
to the bed. You see it shining over her head in the glimmer of the
lamp, and--and the lamp goes out, with a groan, and all is dark.

The darkness and the scene frightened people. Rebecca performed her
part so well, and with such ghastly truth, that the spectators were all
dumb, until, with a burst, all the lamps of the hall blazed out again,
when everybody began to shout applause. "Brava! brava!" old Steyne's
strident voice was heard roaring over all the rest. "By--, she'd do it
too," he said between his teeth. The performers were called by the
whole house, which sounded with cries of "Manager! Clytemnestra!"
Agamemnon could not be got to show in his classical tunic, but stood in
the background with Aegisthus and others of the performers of the
little play. Mr. Bedwin Sands led on Zuleikah and Clytemnestra. A
great personage insisted on being presented to the charming
Clytemnestra. "Heigh ha? Run him through the body. Marry somebody
else, hay?" was the apposite remark made by His Royal Highness.

"Mrs. Rawdon Crawley was quite killing in the part," said Lord Steyne.
Becky laughed, gay and saucy looking, and swept the prettiest little
curtsey ever seen.

Servants brought in salvers covered with numerous cool dainties, and
the performers disappeared to g