There were shouts and shrieks, tears and groans, and here and there helpless fainting.  Ushers rushed from place to place, the police appeared suddenly.  The Japanese, silent, swift, self-controlled, were moving their paraphernalia that the curtain might be lowered, were stretching a small screen about the inert, fallen figure, were bringing a rug to lift her on, and their faces were like so many old, old ivory masks.

Tom McDermott, in his blue coat, stood by the silent little figure waiting for the rug and for the coming of the doctor, and groaned, “On her face, too—­and she a girl child!”

Tom had seen three battle-fields and many worse sights, but none of them had misted his eyes as did this little glittering, broken heap, and he turned his face away and muttered, “If she’d only keep quiet!” for truly it was dreadful to see the long shudders that ran over the silent, huddled thing, to see certain red threads broadening into very rivulets.  At last the ambulance, then the all-concealing curtain, the reviving music, a song, a pretty dance, and presto, all was forgotten!

When Omassa opened her eyes, her brain took up work just where it had left off; therefore she was astonished to find the sun shining, for had she not seen the sun go out quite black in the sky?  Yet here it was so bright, and she was—­was, where?  The room was small and clean, oh, clean! like a Japanese house, and almost as empty.  Could it be?  But no, this bed was American, and then why was she so heavy?  What great weight was upon her?  She could not move one little bit, and oh, my! what was it she could faintly see beyond and below her own nose—­was it shadow?  Surely she could not see her own lip?  She smiled at that, and the movement wrung a cry of agony from her—­when, like magic, a face was bending over her, so kind and gentle, and then a joyous voice cried to some one in the next room, “This little girl, not content with being alive, sir, has her senses—­is she not a marvel?”

And with light, delicate touch the stranger moistened the distended, immovable lip poor Omassa had dimly seen, through which her lower teeth had been driven in her fall, and in answer to her pleading, questioning glances at her own helpless body, told her she was encased in plaster now, but by and by she would be released, and now she was to be very quiet and try to sleep.  And then she smoothed a tiny wrinkle out of the white quilt, shut out the sunlight, and, smiling kindly back at her, left Omassa, who obediently fell asleep—­partly because her life was one of obedience, and partly because there was nothing else to do.

And then began the acquaintance between Mrs. Helen Holmes, nurse, and Omassa, Japanese acrobat.  The other nurses teased Helen Holmes about her pet patient, saying she was only a commonplace, Japanese child woman; but Mrs. Holmes would exclaim, “If you could only see her light up and glow!”