And in the exhilaration of the day, one walks miles and miles,
and dances and skips, and the fatigue is never felt.
In Washington Square, away down where Royal Street empties its
stream of children great and small into the broad channel of
Elysian Fields Avenue, there was a perfect Indian pow-wow. With
a little imagination one might have willed away the vision of the
surrounding houses, and fancied one's self again in the forest,
where the natives were holding a sacred riot. The square was
filled with spectators, masked and un-masked. It was amusing to
watch these mimic Red-men, they seemed so fierce and earnest.
Suddenly one chief touched another on the elbow. "See that
Mephisto and troubadour over there?" he whispered huskily.
"Yes; who are they?"
"I don't know the devil," responded the other, quietly, "but I'd
know that other form anywhere. It's Leon, see? I know those
white hands like a woman's and that restless head. Ha!"
"But there may be a mistake."
"No. I'd know that one anywhere; I feel it is he. I'll pay him
now. Ah, sweetheart, you've waited long, but you shall feast
now!" He was caressing something long and lithe and glittering
beneath his blanket.
In a masked dance it is easy to give a death-blow between the
shoulders. Two crowds meet and laugh and shout and mingle almost
inextricably, and if a shriek of pain should arise, it is not
noticed in the din, and when they part, if one should stagger and
fall bleeding to the ground, can any one tell who has given the
blow? There is nothing but an unknown stiletto on the ground,
the crowd has dispersed, and masks tell no tales anyway.
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