F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 63
symmetry; it heaves as softly as if touched by some gentle zephyr.
From an Haidean brow falls and floats undulating over her
marble-like shoulders, the massive folds of her glossy black hair.
Nature had indeed been lavish of her gifts on this fair creature, to
whose charms no painter could give a touch more fascinating. This
girl, whose elastic step and erect carriage contrasts strangely with
the languid forms about her, is Anna Bonard, the neglected, the
betrayed. There passes and repasses her, now contemplating her with
a curious stare, then muttering inaudibly, a man of portly figure,
in mask and cowl. He touches with a delicate hand his watch-guard,
we see two sharp, lecherous eyes peering through the domino; he
folds his arms and pauses a few seconds, as if to survey the metal
of her companion, then crosses and recrosses her path. Presently his
singular demeanor attracts her attention, a curl of sarcasm is seen
on her lip, her brow darkens, her dark orbs flash as of fire,--all
the heart-burnings of a soul stung with shame are seen to quicken
and make ghastly those features that but a moment before shone
lambent as summer lightning. He pauses as with a look of withering
scorn she scans him from head to foot, raises covertly her left
hand, tossing carelessly her glossy hair on her shoulder, and with
lightning quickness snatches with her right the domino from his
face. "Hypocrite!" she exclaims, dashing it to the ground, and with
her foot placed defiantly upon the domino, assumes a tragic
attitude, her right arm extended, and the forefinger of her hand
pointing in his face. "Ah!" she continues, in biting accents, "it is
against the perfidy of such as you I have struggled. Your false
face, like your heart, needed a disguise. But I have dragged it
away, that you may be judged as you are. This is my satisfaction for
your betrayal. Oh that I could have deeper revenge!" She has
unmasked Judge Sleepyhorn, who stands before the anxious gaze of an
hundred night revellers, pressing eagerly to the scene of confusion.