"Good thing it's not the Hawk!" And, to the absolute amazement of the throng, this sight was then
apparent. A figure dropped through space. That high, shrill cry again
was heard:

"Feather my soul ... to know thy awful swiftness!" Its singing loveliness touched the heart, its appealing, passionate
sweetness was marvellous, as from the gallery this figure of a man,
dressed as a strong, dark bird, shot down with splendid grace and ease. The feathers swept; the swings spread out as sails that take the wind. Like a hawk that darts with unerring power and aim upon its prey, this
thing of mighty wings rushed down into the empty space where the two
danced. Observed by all, he entered, swooping beautifully, stretching
his wings like any eagle. He dropped. He fixed his point of landing
with consummate skill close beside the astonished dancers. He landed. It happened with such swiftness it brought the dazzle and blindness
as when lightning strikes. People in different parts of the room saw
different details; a few saw nothing at all after the first startling
shock, closing their eyes, or holding their arms before their faces as
in self-protection. The touch of panic fear caught the entire room. The
nameless thing that all the evening had been vaguely felt was come. It
had suddenly materialised. For this incredible thing occurred in the full blaze of light upon
the open floor. Binovitch, grown in some sense formidable, opened his
dark, big wings about the girl. The long grey feathers moved, causing
powerful draughts of wind that made a rushing sound. An aspect of the
terrible was about him, like an emanation. The great beaked head was
poised to strike, the tufted claws were raised like fingers that shut
and opened, and the whole presentment of his amazing figure focused in
an attitude of attack that was magnificent and terrible. No one who saw
it doubted. Yet there were those who swore that it was not Binovitch
at all, but that another outline, monstrous and shadowy, towered
above him, draping his lesser proportions with two colossal wings of
darkness. That some touch of strange divinity lay in it may be claimed,
however confused the wild descriptions afterward. For many lowered
their heads and bowed their shoulders. There was terror. There was also
awe. The onlookers swayed as though some power passed over them through
the air. A sound of wings was certainly in the room. Then some one screamed; a shriek broke high and clear; and emotion,
ordinary human emotion, unaccustomed to terrific things, swept loose. The Hawk and Vera flew. Beaten back against the wall as by a stroke
of whirlwind, the Pierrot staggered. He watched them go. Out of the
lighted room they flew, out of the crowded human atmosphere, out of
the heat and artificial light, the walled-in, airless halls that were
a cage. All this they left behind. They seemed things of wind and air,
made free happily of another element. Earth held them not. Toward the
open night they raced with this extraordinary lightness as of birds,
down the long corridor and on to the southern terrace, where great
coloured curtains were hung suspended from the columns. A moment they
were visible. Then the fringe of one huge curtain, lifted by the wind,
showed their dark outline for a second against the starry sky. There
was a cry, a leap. The curtain flapped again and closed. They vanished. And into the ball-room swept the cold draught of night air from the
desert. But three figures instantly were close upon their heels. The throng
of half-dazed, half-stupefied onlookers, it seemed, projected them as
though by some explosive force. The general mass held back, but, like
projectiles, these three flung themselves after the fugitives down the
corridor at high speed--the Apache, Don Quixote, and, last of them,
the Pierrot. For Khilkoff, the brother, and Baron Minski, the man who
caught wolves alive, had been for some time keenly on the watch, while
Dr. Plitzinger, reading the symptoms clearly, never far away, had been
faithfully observant of every movement. His mask tossed aside, the
great psychiatrist was now recognised by all. They reached the parapet
just as the curtain flapped back heavily into place; the next second
all three were out of sight behind it. Khilkoff was first, however,
urged forward at frantic speed by the warning words the doctor had
whispered as they ran. Some thirty yards beyond the terrace was the
brink of the crumbling cliff on which the great hotel was built, and
there was a drop of sixty feet to the desert floor below. Only a low
stone wall marked the edge. Accounts varied. Khilkoff, it seems, arrived in time--in the nick of
time--to seize his sister, virtually hovering on the brink. He heard
the loose stones strike the sand below. There was no struggle, though
it appears she did not thank him for his interference at first. In a
sense she was beside--outside--herself. And he did a characteristic
thing: he not only brought her back into the ball-room, but he
_danced_ her back. It was admirable. Nothing could have calmed the
general excitement better. The pair of them danced in together as
though nothing was amiss. Accustomed to the strenuous practice of his
Cossack regiment, this young cavalry officer's muscles were equal to
the semi-dead weight in his arms. At most the onlookers thought her
tired, perhaps. Confidence was restored--such is the psychology of
a crowd--and in the middle of a thrilling Viennese waltz he easily
smuggled her out of the room, administered brandy, and got her up to
bed. The absence of the Hawk, meanwhile, was hardly noticed; comments
were made and then forgotten; it was Vera in whom the strange, anxious
sympathy had centred. And, with her obvious safety, the moment of
primitive, childish panic passed away. Don Quixote, too, was presently
seen dancing gaily as though nothing untoward had happened; supper
intervened; the incident was over; it had melted into the general
wildness of the evening's irresponsibility. The fact that Pierrot did
not appear again was noticed by no single person. But Dr. Plitzinger was otherwise engaged, his heart and mind and
soul all deeply exercised. A death-certificate is not always made
out quite so simply as the public thinks. That Binovitch had died of
suffocation in his swift descent through merely sixty feet of air
was not conceivable; yet that his body lay so neatly placed upon the
desert after such a fall was stranger still. It was not crumpled, it
was not torn; no single bone was broken, no muscle wrenched; there was
no bruise. There was no indenture in the sand. The figure lay sidewise
as though in sleep, no sign of violence visible anywhere, the dark
wings folded as a great bird folds them when it creeps away to die in
loneliness. Beneath the Horus mask the face was smiling. It seemed
he had floated into death upon the element he loved. And only Vera
had seen the enormous wings that, hovering invitingly above the dark
abyss, bore him so softly into another world.