The prince did not hurry in the least.  On the contrary, he was greatly interested and kept pausing in order to look at the sceneshifters’ maneuvers.  A batten had just been lowered, and the group of gaslights high up among its iron crossbars illuminated the stage with a wide beam of light.  Muffat, who had never yet been behind scenes at a theater, was even more astonished than the rest.  An uneasy feeling of mingled fear and vague repugnance took possession of him.  He looked up into the heights above him, where more battens, the gas jets on which were burning low, gleamed like galaxies of little bluish stars amid a chaos of iron rods, connecting lines of all sizes, hanging stages and canvases spread out in space, like huge cloths hung out to dry.

“Lower away!” shouted the foreman unexpectedly.

And the prince himself had to warn the count, for a canvas was descending.  They were setting the scenery for the third act, which was the grotto on Mount Etna.  Men were busy planting masts in the sockets, while others went and took frames which were leaning against the walls of the stage and proceeded to lash them with strong cords to the poles already in position.  At the back of the stage, with a view to producing the bright rays thrown by Vulcan’s glowing forge, a stand had been fixed by a limelight man, who was now lighting various burners under red glasses.  The scene was one of confusion, verging to all appearances on absolute chaos, but every little move had been prearranged.  Nay, amid all the scurry the whistle blower even took a few turns, stepping short as he did so, in order to rest his legs.

“His Highness overwhelms me,” said Bordenave, still bowing low.  “The theater is not large, but we do what we can.  Now if His Highness deigns to follow me—­”

Count Muffat was already making for the dressing-room passage.  The really sharp downward slope of the stage had surprised him disagreeably, and he owed no small part of his present anxiety to a feeling that its boards were moving under his feet.  Through the open sockets gas was descried burning in the “dock.”  Human voices and blasts of air, as from a vault, came up thence, and, looking down into the depths of gloom, one became aware of a whole subterranean existence.  But just as the count was going up the stage a small incident occurred to stop him.  Two little women, dressed for the third act, were chatting by the peephole in the curtain.  One of them, straining forward and widening the hole with her fingers in order the better to observe things, was scanning the house beyond.

“I see him,” said she sharply.  “Oh, what a mug!”