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the room in a high-stepping jig of pure joy, the maidens meanwhile performing their own ballet of wonder at the mobility of their bodies. Frulk, becoming amorous, sought to capture and clasp the maidens but in wonder and innocence and alarm they eluded him.
    All the while Frulk’s shrewish wife Lufa had been peering down from a window high in the wall, displaying a variety of extravagant grimaces: shock, disgust, annoyance, vindictive resolve.
    Frulk ran back and forth like a maniac; the girls dodged and danced away and at last all jumped back into their cabinets and slammed the doors. Frulk, snatching open the doors, discovered only the flowers he had placed there previously.
    Frulk walked back and forth in cogitation, then made preparations to perform his magic again. Lufa entered the room and sent Frulk away on an errand. As soon as Frulk had departed, Lufa opened the cabinets, pulled forth the flowers, tore them apart, gnashed them with her teeth, ground them into the floor. Then from a basket she took noisome herbs: dog’s-breath, slankweed, erflatus, rhume, zogma, carrion weed; these she placed in the cabinets and after a caper of wicked glee left the room.
    Frulk entered and, assured of Lufa’s absence, once again performed his sorcery. On tiptoe he approached the cabinets, poised himself to grasp the beauties as they emerged, reached forward and the doors to all the cabinets flew wide. Out leapt six grotesques. Frulk jumped back aghast, and as the orchestra played a maniac two-step, the grotesques pursued Frulk around the room. Down came the curtain.
    Bonko came to report to Zamp. “I have arranged guards. The hawsers were soaked with acid and cut with blades, ready to part and drift us out on the river.”
    Zamp snorted in annoyance. “That villain Ashgale has no conscience! The hawsers are mended?”
    “As good as new.”
    “Continue the alert.”
    The curtain drew back on one of Zamp’s famous tableaux. Twenty members of the troupe wearing black garments and black masks stood before a black backdrop holding colored targets on rods, to create geometrical intricacies. From the orchestra came a click-clacking of drums and a muffled tinkling of the vitrophon; with each accent of the rhythm, the targets shifted into a new pattern, an effect which after a few moments became hypnotic.
    Bonko came running to find Zamp. “A fire in the fore-peak! A phosphorus clock was buried under rags and hay!”
    Zamp ran forward, to find billows of smoke pouring from the boatswain’s locker. Deck-hands formed a chain, passed buckets of water into the locker, and the fire was extinguished. Bonko told Zamp: “The timing was precise; someone intended to panic the audience!”
    “Ashgale has the soul of a mad dog; nothing deters him! Maintain a most careful watch!”
    The curtain descended on the tableau and jugglers came forth to provide a brief interlude, throwing disks out over the audience, which swooped in a circle and returned to the jugglers’ hands.
    Bonko again reported to Zamp. “Two men in voluminous robes sit yonder in the audience; I believe they carry concealed objects.”
    “Conduct them to the quarter-deck, search them and deal with them accordingly.”
    Bonko returned several minutes later. “Villains as I suspected! They carried cages of pests, vermin and fire-hornets, which they were about to release into the audience. We thrashed them and threw them into the river.”
    “Excellent,” said Zamp. “Remain vigilant.”
    The curtain drew back to reveal the surface of an exotic planet. Two men descended in a simulated space-boat; they marveled at the peculiar conditions and experienced a set of ludicrous mishaps. In the trees sat huge insects playing a weird music on bizarre instruments. The music stopped short as a group of near-nude, near-human creatures appeared, running on all fours. The creatures gamboled and frisked, and inspected the space-men with affectionate curiosity. The insect musicians again