But not its deadliest! That
must come--later--as an aftermath. But the height or the depth was
reached.
The scene at midnight was unreal, livid, medieval. Dance of
cannibals, dance of sun-worshipers, dance of Apaches on the war-
path, dance of cliff-dwellers wild over the massacre of a dreaded
foe--only these orgies might have been comparable to that whirl of
gold and lust in Beauty Stanton's parlors.
Benton seemed breathing hard, laboring under its load of evil,
dancing toward its close.
Night wore on and the hour of dawn approached. The lamps were dead;
the tents were dark; the music was stilled; and the low, soft roar
was but a hollow mockery of its earlier strength.
Like specters men staggered slowly and wanderingly through the gray
streets. Gray ghosts! All was gray. A vacant laugh pealed out and a
strident curse, and then again the low murmur prevailed. Benton was
going to rest. Weary, drunken, spent nature sought oblivion--on
disordered beds, on hard floors, and in dusty corners. An immense
and hovering shadow held the tents and halls and streets. Through
this opaque gloom the silent and the mumbling revelers reeled along.
Louder voices broke the spell only for an instant. Death lay in the
middle of the main street, in the dust--and no passing man halted.
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