When the song was over the men hung the rope and the trapeze.  Jenny and Lou Slingsby swung themselves up to it, turned a few somersaults and then were quiet.  They were only meant to give effect to the scene in their gauzy dresses and spangles.  Then South came forward and told the audience what we meant to do.  It was a feat, he said, which had never been produced before in any theatre, and in which failure was death.  No one but that most daring of all acrobats, Balacchi, would attempt it.  Now I knew South so well that I saw under all his confident, bragging tone he was more anxious and doubtful than he had ever been.  He hesitated a moment, and then requested that after we took our places the audience should preserve absolute silence, and refrain from even the slightest movement until the feat was over.  The merest trifle might distract the attention of the performers and render their eyes and hold unsteady, he said.  He left the stage, and the music began.

I went round to take my place in the gallery.  George had not yet left his room.  As I passed I tapped at the door and called, “Good luck, old fellow!”

“That’s certain now, Zack,” he answered, with a joyous laugh.  He was so exultant, you see, that Susy had come.

But the shadow of death seemed to have crept over me.  When I took my stand in the lofty gallery, and looked down at the brilliant lights and the great mass of people, who followed my every motion as one man, and the two glittering, half-naked girls swinging in the distance, and heard the music rolling up thunders of sound, it was all ghastly and horrible to me, sir.  Some men have such presentiments, they say:  I never had before or since.  South remained on the stage perfectly motionless, in order, I think, to maintain his control over the audience.

The trumpets sounded a call, and in the middle of a burst of triumphant music George came on the stage.  There was a deafening outbreak of applause and then a dead silence, but I think every man and woman felt a thrill of admiration of the noble figure Poor George! the new, tight-fitting dress of purple velvet that he had bought for this night set off his white skin, and his fine head was bare, with no covering but the short curls that Susy liked.

It was for Susy!  He gave one quick glance up at her, and a bright, boyish smile, as if telling her not to be afraid, which all the audience understood, and answered by an involuntary, long-drawn breath.  I looked at Susy.  The girl’s colorless face was turned to George, and her hands were clasped as though she saw him already dead before her; but she could be trusted, I saw. She would utter no sound.  I had only time to glance at her, and then turned to my work.  George and I dared not take our eyes from each other.

There was a single bugle note, and then George swung himself up to the trapeze.  The silence was like death as he steadied himself and slowly turned so as to front me.  As he turned he faced the stage-box for the first time.  He had reached the level of the posture-girls, who fluttered on either side, and stood on the swaying rod poised on one foot, his arms folded, when in the breathless stillness there came a sudden cry and the words, “Oh, Charley!  Charley!”