FullReads

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Miss Smith. “Am I binding you too tightly?”

“No, not that; but I think you are making one of my bracelets press into my flesh. It’s such a thick cumbersome thing anyway.”

“Shall I slip it farther up your arm?” asked Miss Smith.

“No, take it off entirely, won’t you, and keep it for me? It fastens with a little clasp.”

So Miss Smith undid the bracelet, which was a band of curiously chased heavy gold, studded with big bosses containing blue stones, and dropped it into her handy blouse pocket.

Then swiftly she finished her task of knotting the handkerchief ends and Madame Ybanca, very securely bound, stood forth in the midst of a laughing ring, making a pretty and appealing picture, her face slightly flushed by embarrassment.

“One thing more for your adornment and you’ll be ready,” promised Miss Smith.

Burrowing beneath the remaining handkerchiefs in the box she produced a collarlike device of soft russet leather, all hung with fat silver sleigh bells which, being loosely sewed to the fabric by means of twisted wire threads, jingled constantly and busily. The slightest movement set the wires to quivering like antennae and the bells to making music. Miss Smith lifted the leather circlet down over Madame Ybanca’s head so that it rested upon her shoulders, looping across just below the base of the throat.

“Take a step forward,” she bade the madame, and as the latter obeyed, all the bells tinkled together with a constant merry clamour.

“Behold!” said Miss Smith. “The lady of the bells is caparisoned for her part. Now then, let each person blindfold his or her eyes with the handkerchief you have; but take care that you are well blinded.

“Oh, Miss Ballister, let me adjust your handkerchief, won’t you? I’m afraid you might disarrange that lovely hair ornament of yours unless you have help. There! How’s that! Can you see anything at all? How many fingers do I hold up?”

“Oh, I’m utterly in the dark,” said Miss Ballister. “I can’t see a thing.”

“Are you all hooded?” called Miss Smith.

A chorus of assents went up.

“Good! Then listen a moment: It will be Madame Ybanca’s task to catch hold of some one of you with her hands fastened as they are behind her. It is your task to keep out of her way; the bells are to warn you of her approach. Whoever is caught takes her place and becomes It.

“Ready–go!”

Standing a moment as though planning a campaign Madame Ybanca made a quick dash toward where the others were grouped the thickest. But her bells betrayed her. From before her they scattered and broke apart, stumbling, groping with outstretched hands to find the wall, jostling into one another, caroming off again, whooping with laughter. Fast as Madame Ybanca advanced, the rest all managed to evade her. She halted, laughing in admission of the handicap upon her, when before she had been so confident of a capture; then, changing her tactics, she undertook to stalk down some member of the blindfolded flock by stealthy, gentle forward steps. But softly though she might advance, the telltale bells gave ample notice of her whereabouts, and the troop fled. Moreover, even when she succeeded–as she soon did–in herding someone into a corner, the prospective victim, a man, managed to slip past her out of danger, being favoured by the fact that to grasp him with one of her fettered hands she must turn entirely about. So he was able to wriggle out of peril and her clutching fingers closed only on empty air.

“It’s not so easy as it seemed,” she confessed.

“Keep trying,” counselled the referee, keeping pace with her. Miss Smith’s eyes were darting everywhere at once, watching the hooded figures keenly, as though to detect any who might seek to cheat by lifting his or her mufflings. “You’re sure to catch somebody presently. They can’t dodge you every time, you know.”

So Madame Ybanca tried again. Ahead of her the fugitives stampeded, milling about in uncertain circles, gliding past her along the walls, fleeing from one room to the other and back again–singly, by pairs and threes. They touched her often, but by reason of her hampered state she never could touch, with her hands, any of them in their flight.