It was clearly off the floor. One could see the drapery at the back of the stage.
"I do trust you will be nice to me this evening?" said the ponderous fellow to the slim beauty on the palanquin.
She tossed her head and did not deign to respond to him.
He then drew shut the curtains of the palanquin. It was still off the floor. "Do you think I am too easy with her?" the ponderous fellow inquired of the audience.
"Yes! Yes!" shouted several of the men.
"Oh, oh!" cried the ponderous fellow looking upward miserably and shaking his fists, helplessly, angrily, in the air. "If only I were not a devoted adherent of the new and wonderful Ar!"
There was much laughter.
I gathered that much of the resentment toward the current governance of Ar tended to be expressed in such places, in shows, in farces, in bawdy travesties and such. Certain theaters had been closed down because of the articulateness and precision, and abusiveness, of such satire or criticism. Two had been burned. To be sure this fellow seemed technically within the bounds of acceptability, if only just so. Too, it was doubtless a great deal safer now than it had been a few weeks ago to indulge in such humor. Wisely I thought had the government withdrawn from its projected policies of devirilization, which, indeed, had never been advanced beyond the stage of proposals. It had discovered, simply, clearly, and immediately that most males of the city would not give up their manhood, even if they were praised for doing so. Indeed, even the Ubara herself, it seemed, had reaffirmed that slave girls should be obedient and try to please their masters. So narrowly, I suspected, had riots and revolutions been averted. Still, I supposed, there might be spies in the audience. I doubted if the ponderous fellow would be poplar with the authorities.
"If only some magician would aid me in my dilemma!" wept the ponderous fellow. "Beware!" cried a fellow in the audience, alarmed.
"Yes, beware!" laughed another fellow.
"If only some magician would waft away my Litsia, if only for a moment, and teach her just a little of what is it to be a slave girl!" he said.
Several men laughed. I had to hand it to the ponderous fellow. He carried off the thing well.
"But of course there are no magicians!" he said.
"Beware," cried one fellow, he who had been so alarmed, so drawn into the drama, before. "Beware, lest one might be listening!"
"I think that I shall speak with her, and plead with her to be a better slave girl," said the fellow.
The palanquin was still of course where it had been last, near the center of the stage, lifted off the floor, by its four bearers. To be sure, as the ponderous fellow had drawn them, the curtains were now closed.
The audience was very still now.
The ponderous fellow then pulled back the curtains.
"Ai!" cried a fellow.
Several of the fellows, including Marcus, gasped.
"She is gone!" cried a fellow.
Once again, one could see through the open palanquin, to the draperies at the back of the stage.
The four fellows in turbans, with plumes, then, in stately fashion, as though nothing unusual had occurred, carried the palanquin offstage.
Men spoke excitedly about us.
I struck my left shoulder, commending the performer for the illusion.
Others, too, then applauded.
The ponderous fellow bowed to the crowd, and then resumed his character. "I think there is but one chance to recover my slave," he confided to the audience, "but I fear to risk it."
"Why?" asked a fellow.
"Because," said the ponderous fellow, addressing his concerned interlocutor confidentially, with a stage whisper, "it might require magic."
"No matter!" said a fellow.
"There is a wicker trunk," said the ponderous fellow. "It was left with me by a fellow from Anango."
Some of the fellows in the audience gasped. The magicians of Anango are famed on Gor. If you wish to have someone turned into a turtle or something, those are the fellows to see. To be sure, their work does not come cheap. The only folks who are not familiar with them, as far as I know, are the chaps from far-off Anango, who have never heard of them.
"Of course, he may not be a magician," mused the ponderous fellow.
"But he might be!" pointed out an excited fellow in the audience.
"True," mused the ponderous fellow.
"It is worth a try," said a fellow.
"Anything to get your rope back on her," said another.
"Do you think he would mind?" asked the ponderous fellow.
"No!" said a fellow.
I wondered how he knew.
"He may be the very fellow who wafted her away!" said another.
"Yes," suggested another fellow.
"Perhaps he wants you to use the trunk to recover her!" said another.
"Yes!" said a man, convinced.
"He did say he was my friend," said the ponderous fellow.
"Fetch the trunk!" said a man.
"Fetch the trunk!" cried the ponderous fellow, decisively, to his fellows offstage.
Two of the fellows who had borne out the palanquin, their turbans and plumes now removed, appeared on stage, entering from stage right, the house left, each of them carrying a trestle. These were placed rather toward the back of the stage, at the center, about five feet apart. In a moment the other two fellows who had helped to bear the palanquin, they, too, now without the turbans and plumes, as there was now no point in such accouterments, their no longer being in attendance on the insolent slave, also emerged from stage right, bearing a long wicker trunk, some six feet in length, some two feet in height and two feet in depth. This was placed on the two trestles. One could, accordingly, see under the trunk, and about it. It was, thus, in full view, and spatially isolated from the floor, the sides of the stage and the drapery in the back, several feet behind it, supported on its two trestles.
"The trunk is not empty!" cried a fellow.
"The slave is within it!" called out another.
"That is no trick!" said another.
"I surely hope the slave is within it," called the ponderous fellow to the audience, "as I do wish to recover her!"
"She is there!" hooted a fellow.
"I hope so," said the ponderous fellow. "Let us look!"
He hurried to the trunk and lifted away the wicker lid, which covered it. He set the lid to one side, on the floor. He then unhinged the back of the trunk from the trunk sides. It hen hung down in the back, being attached to the trunk bottom. One could see it, through the trestle legs. He then opened the left side of the trunk, letting it, too, hang free, except that it hung to the side. It, too, of course, was attached to the trunk's bottom. He treated the right side of the trunk in the same manner. It, too, naturally, was attached to the trunk bottom, in the same manner as was the left side. The trunk, in effect, was being disassembled before the audience. It was now completely open, the back hanging down in back, and the sides to the sides, except for the front panel, which the ponderous fellow held in place with one hand.
"Open the front panel!" cried a fellow.
"Show us the slave!" cried another.
"That is no trick!" said a fellow.
"Aii!" cried more than one fellow, as the ponderous fellow let the front panel drop forward, to the front. The trunk was now completely open.
"The slave is not there!" cried a man.
"She is not there," said another, startled.
"It would be a poor trick if she was there," said another.
"Why do you show us an empty trunk?" asked a man.
We could see through to the drapery behind.
"Alas, woe!" cried the ponderous fellow, running his hands about the empty space now exposed to view. "It is true! She is not here!" He got down on all fours, and looked under the trunk, and then he lifted up the front panel, running his hand about under the trunk bottom, which was, say, about an inch in thickness. He then, seemingly distraught, let the front panel fall forward again. But even then he went again to his knees and thrust his hand about, to the floor, then between the trunk bottom and the floor. The front panel, even dropped forward, was still about eighteen inches from the floor. The floor could be seen clearly at all times beneath it.