Just then emerged from the pandemonium within another sound, curt and sharp-cut, the crash against the door of something heavy.

“That door won’t stand much of that,” Frank warned.  “They’ll get out before we know it.”

The look of irresolution went like a flash from Billy’s face, from Honey’s, from Pete’s.  The look of the hunter took its place, keen, alert, determined, cruel.

“Keep close behind me,” Frank ordered.

“When I open the door, push in as quick as you can.  They’ll try to rush out.”

Inside the vibrant drumming kept up.  Mixed with it came screams more sharp with terror.  There came another crash.

Frank pounded on the door.  “Stand back! he called in a quiet tone of authority as if the girls could understand.  He fitted the key to the lock, turned it, pulled the door open, leaped over the two broken chairs on the threshold.  The others followed, crowding close.

The rush that they had expected did not come.

Apparently at the first touch on the door, the, girls had retreated to the farthest corner.  They stood huddled there, gathered behind Julia.  They stood close together, swaying, half-supporting each other, their pinions drooped and trailing, their eyes staring black with horror out of their white faces.

Julia, a little in front, stood at defiance.  Her wings, as though animated by a gentle voltage of electricity, kept lifting with a low purring whirr.  Half-way they struck the ceiling and dropped dead.  The tiny silvery-white feathers near her shoulders rose like fur on a cat’s back.  One hand was clenched; the other grasped a chair.  Her face was not terrified; neither was it white.  It glowed with rage, as if a fire had been built in an alabaster vase.

All about on the floor, on chairs, over shelves lay the gauds that had lured them to their capture.  Of them all, Julia alone showed no change.  Below the scarlet draperies swathing Chiquita’s voluptuous outlines appeared the gold stockings and the high-heeled gold slippers which she had tried on her beautiful Andalusian feet.  Necklaces swung from her throat; bracelets covered her arms; rings crowded her fingers.  Lulu had thrown about her leafy costume an evening cape of brilliant blue brocade trimmed with ermine.  On her head glittered a boudoir-cap of web lace studded with iridescent mock jewels.  Over her mail of seaweed, Clara wore a mandarin’s coat — yellow, with a decoration of tiny mirrors.  Her hair was studded with jeweled hairpins, combs; a jeweled band, a jeweled aigrette.  Peachy had put on a pink chiffon evening gown hobbled in the skirt, one shoulder-length, shining black glove, a long chain of fire-opals.  Out of this emerged with an astonishing effect of contrast her gleaming pearly shoulders and her, lustrous blue wings.

An instant the two armies stood staring at each other — at close terms for the first time.  Then, with one tremendous sweep of her arm, Julia threw something over their heads out the open door.  It flashed through the sunlight like a rainbow rocket, tore the surface of the sea in a dazzle of sparks and colors.