"Ah, look," said Dicky Fergus at the fire, "as fine a night as ever I saw
in the West! The sky's a picture. You could almost hand the stars down,
they're so near."
"What's that clump together on the right--what are they called in
astronomy?" asked Constantine Jopp, with a leer.
"Orion is the name--a beauty, ain't it?" answered Fergus.
"I've been watching Orion rise," said the third--Holden was his name.
"Many's the time I've watched Orion rising. Orion's the star for me.
Say, he wipes 'em all out--right out. Watch him rising now."
By a manipulation of the lights Orion moved up the back curtain slowly,
and blazed with light nearer the zenith. And La Touche had more than the
worth of its money in this opening to the third act of the play. O'Ryan
was a favourite, at whom La Touche loved to jeer, and the parable of the
stars convulsed them.
At the first words O'Ryan put a hand on himself and tried to grasp the
meaning of it all, but his entrance and the subsequent applause had
confused him. Presently, however, he turned to the back curtain, as
Orion moved slowly up the heavens, and found the key to the situation.
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