advanced to the centre of the rope.  There she opened the cage as steadily as if she had been standing on the floor of her own room.  The birds fluttered through the little door and went, with a swift flight, directly to their goal.  Then, below and beside her, from every place occupied by spectators, and from hundreds of windows, rose thunders of applause; but it seemed to her as if the roaring of the surging sea was in her ears.  Her heart throbbed under her pink silk bodice like an iron hammer, and in the proud consciousness of having probably attained already what she desired, and, besides thousands of other eyes, fixed Lienhard’s upon her as if with chains and bonds, she was seized with the ambitious desire to accomplish something still more amazing.  The man to whom her heart clung, the Emperor, the countless multitude below, were all at this time subject to her in heart and mind.  They could think and feel nothing except what concerned her, her art, and her fate.  She could and would show to Lienhard, to the Emperor, to all, what they had never witnessed.  They should turn faint with sympathizing anxiety.  She would make then realize what genuine art, skill, and daring could accomplish.  Everything else, even the desire for applause, was forgotten.  Though her performance might be called only a perilous feat, she felt it to be true, genuine art.  Her whole soul was merged in the desire to execute, boldly and yet gracefully, the greatest and most perfect performance attainable by a ropedancer.  With beads of perspiration on her brow, and eyes uplifted, she threw the cage aside, swung her Mercury staff aloft, and danced along the rope in waltz time, as though borne by the gods of the wind.  Whirling swiftly around, her slender figure darted in graceful curves from one end of the narrow path to the other.  Then the applause reached the degree of enthusiastic madness which she desired; even Loni clapped his hands from the steeple window.  She had never seen him do this to any of the company.  Yes, she must have accomplished her purpose well; but she would show him and the others something still more wonderful.  What she had just done was capable of many additional feats; she had tried it.

With fluttering hands and pulses she instantly loosed from her panting bosom and her hips the garland of roses and leaves twined about the upper portion of her body, and swung it around her in graceful curves as she knelt and rose on the rope.

She had often jumped rope on the low rope, turning completely around so that she faced the other way.  To repeat this performance on the one stretched to the steeple would certainly not be expected from her or from any other.  Suppose she should use the garland as a rope and venture to leap over it on this giddy height?  Suppose she should even succeed in turning around?  The rope was firm.  If her plan was successful, she would have accomplished something unprecedented; if she failed—­if, while turning, she lost her balance—­her