CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE RUNAWAY.

The fancy ball at Moscheloo was a brilliant affair.  More brilliant perhaps than in the crush and mixed confusion of city society could have been achieved.  It is a great thing to have room for display.  There were people enough, not too many; and almost all of them knew their business.  So there was good dressing and capital acting.  The evening would have been a success, even without the charades on which Mme. Lasalle laid so much stress.

Dominoes were worn for the greater amusement; and of course curiosity was busy; but more than curiosity.  In the incongruous fashion common to such entertainments, a handsome Turkish janissary drew up to a figure draped in dark serge and with her whole person enveloped in a shapeless mantle of the same, which was drawn over her head and face.

‘I have been puzzling myself for the last quarter of an hour,’ said he, ‘to find out—­not who—­but what you are.’

‘Been successful?’ said the witch.

’I confess, no.  Of course you will not tell me who you are; but I beg, who do you pretend to be?’

‘O, pretend!’ said the witch.  ’I am “a woman that hath a familiar spirit!” ’

‘Where did you pick up your attendant?’

‘Came at my call.  I suppose you have heard of Endor?’

’Have I?  En—­dor?  Where have I heard that name?  It is no place about here.  ‘Pon my honour, I forget.’

‘In the East?’ suggested the witch.

’Stupid!—­I know; you are the very person I want to see.  But first I wish you would resolve an old puzzle of mine—­Did you bring up Samuel, honestly?—­or was it all smoke?’

‘Smoke proves fire.’

‘Samuel would not have been in the fire.’

‘He would if it was necessary,’ said the witch.  ’Whom do you want brought up, Mr. Nightingale?’

‘Ha!’ said the janissary.  ’How do you know that?  But perhaps you are “familiar” with everybody.  Bring up Miss Kennedy?’

‘Very well,’ said the witch, beginning to walk slowly round him.  ’But as it is not certain that Saul saw Samuel, I suppose it will not matter whether you see her?’

’It matters the whole of it!  I want to see her of course.  There is nobody else, in fact, whom I want to see; nor anybody else worth seeing after her.  The rarest, brightest, most distracting vision that has ever been seen west of your place.’

’If there is nobody worth seeing after, you had better see everybody else first,’ said the witch, pausing in her round.

’You have a familiar spirit.  Tell me what she thinks about me; will you?’

The witch threw up a handful of sweet pungent dust into the air, and made another slow round about the janissary.

’Neither black nor white,’—­she said oracularly, ’neither yellow nor blue; neither pea-green nor delicate mouse grey.’