Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 17, 1924 — page 85: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SOMETHING SMALLER THAN GOD, When the doors were opened the audito- rium was filled in a single orderly surge. The stage was brightly decorated. Green plush rugs covered the rough boards. Tabo- rets with nickel trimmings and the para- phernalia for the Hundred and One Conju- rations were scattered about. There was no applause when the Great Rhoda appeared— only a sudden hush. Children asked their parents how it was that the Amerikansky had only to pass a shiny black stick over a flower pot to make roses instantly bloom, when in their own gardens months were required to encom- pass the same phenomenon. ‘Their elders would have liked to know themselves; and they wondered how the magician, terrifying in his gauntness, could toss a white rag into a silk hat and extract rabbit after rabbit. There were other amazements— as, for example, when the gaunt, black-eyed man discharged a revolver at a glass jar which promptly filled with white mice. Farley was in the reconstructed piano box that served as a box office, still selling tickets, when Marcene deserted her post at the door and begged him to go inside. “He is preparing to do the trunk trick now. He seems to be exhausted, but every- thing has gone smoothly so far. He is going through with it, I think, only because you will be watching. It is the one, you know that led to the ring.” When they entered the theater Rhoda and the electrician were dragging a large square black trunk toward center stage. Rhoda raised the lid and went through’ the conventional pantomime mechanically. Once he wrestled with a Serbian idiom in an attempt at rousing a laugh from his stolid, undemonstrative audience. But those peas- ants had long since had the impulse to laughter crushed out of them. Ten Serbs were prevailed upon to mount the stage. At Rhoda’s request they exam- ined the trunk. While they were awkward- ly inspecting it a native policeman hand- cuffed his wrists behind him and bound his ankles with rope. He hopped to the trunk and vaulted into it. He crouched down with his haunted black eyes sweeping the rows of dark faces. His shoulders, then his head, disappeared. 235 The lid was closed and locked, and the key was tossed into the audience. A black velvet sheet was spread over the trunk, and the Serbs joined hands in a circle surround- ing it. The lights were switched off. In the darkness Marcene fumbled for Farley’s hand and pressed it. “The handcuffs and rope, of course, are easy,” she whispered. “I know there must be a hinged panel, set in very cun- ningly, and opened by pressing at a certain spot. “T have pressed everywhere, but I couldn’t find the place. That was the trick the fakirs showed him; and he won’t tell me. When the lights come on, Michael, he will be standing on the trunk, draped in the velvet robe. It is old, but always ef- fective.” Minutes passed. Twelve hundred Serb- ians waited in skeptical silence. Once Farley heard a scuffling from the direction of the trunk, then a scratching sound. Then silence again. He grinned nervously. When the lights came on, the Great R-r-rhoda would be standing there on the trunk, smiling his sardonic smile at those dumfounded peasants! “ Past time for the lights,”” Marcene mur- mured. He shouted: “ Lights! Lumiére!” “ Videlo!” some one boisterously trans- lated. The lights winked on. The Great Rhoda was nowhere to be seen. The black trunk stood where Rhoda had placed it, and the black velvet had not been disturbed. The men forming a circle about it were blinking their eyes and grinning. Marcene was clutching Farley’s hand, digging her nails into his palm. “ Stay here,” he said, and ran down the aisle to the stage. The circle broke. Time was lost in finding the present owner of the key. The Great Rhoda was crouched in the trunk. The handcuffs lay beneath him. The ropes were in a loose tangle under his feet. One of the Serbs called softly to a friend. The message rippled in a wave of sibilance to where Marcene was standing. Those phlegmatic peasants were not as- COL, S G VTOO (C@