Silence fell suddenly on the theatre. The audience was standing. A
woman sobbed somewhere in a far corner, but the rest were dismayed and
speechless. A few steps before them all was Molly Mackinder, white and
frightened, but in her eyes was a look of understanding as she gazed at
Terry. Breathing hard, Terry stood still in the middle of the stage, the
red fog not yet gone out of his eyes, his hands clasped at his side,
vaguely realising the audience again. Behind him was the back curtain in
which the lights of Orion twinkled aggressively. The three men who had
attacked him were still where he had thrown them.
The silence was intense, the strain oppressive. But now a drawling voice
came from the back of the hall. "Are you watching the rise of Orion?"
it said. It was the voice of Gow Johnson.
The strain was broken; the audience dissolved in laughter; but it was not
hilarious; it was the nervous laughter of relief, touched off by a native
humour always present in the dweller of the prairie.
"I beg your pardon," said Terry quietly and abstractedly to the audience.
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