CLEOPATRA'S ASP.

Otago Witness, Issue 1813, 20 August 1886, Page 34

CLEOPATRA'S ASP.

It had been arranged that we should play " Antony and Cleopatra " on that particular evening, by particular desire of the deacon and leading inhabitants of Selma, and I asked Saul to drive quickly that I might be back in time for the "call" at 12. On arriving at the hall, I found a warm altercat tion going on between Mr Calhoun and his wife. She had formerly attempted the part of Cleopatra, and I believe it was the one in which she was least unsatisfactory, But I really believe that her strongest objection to my undertaking the role arose from her distaste for the demonstrations of affection which the great dramatist's linos suggest betweeen the amorous Antony and the Egyptian Queen. I was obliged to be a listener to this connubial dispute ; and from what I heard I gathered that the conduct of Pepita had of late not been entirely exemplary. She had, it seemed, been " making too free " with a party of " cow boys " (cattle drovers from Texas) who had honoured Selma with a visit ; and it was as much to teach, her a lesson as to secure an adequate representation of the part that her husband refused, in not too civil terms, to alter the cast of Antony and Cleopatra." Pepita might play Charmian if she chose ; otherwise, she might " leave it alone." At this refusal the passionate temper of the mestizo flared into flame. She first of all poured out upon the devoted head of her husband a flood of abuse which I need not write down here ; and, then turning to me, she scolded me soundly for having " supplanted " her, as she called it, " Yes," she said, her black eyes flashing, her nostrils dilated, and her hand clenched in a style that, if she could only have reproduced it on the- stage, would have made her successful as a tragedienne, " you have taken my bread out of my mouth, and you have taken my husband; but, mark my word, you won't live to enjoy either 1 " Then her eyes falling upon a glove I had picked up, which happened to be protruding from the pocket of my ulster, she cried " Thief ! would you take everything ? " snatched the glove away, and dashed, weeping wildly, out of the place. I was surprised to discover that it was Pepita's glove which I had, and an uneasy wonder how it , came to be left whore I bad found it hovered, so to speak, at the back of my brains for some hours. But, as these wore also occupied with the very harassing work of rehearsing, it was not strange that my " secondary musings " had no definite result. There was a sort of suppressed hostility in Pepita's manner when we met at the thealro in the evening. She was paler than usual, and more reflected and abstracted. She played_ Charmian as if in a dream. There was evidently something on, or in her mind, which made her mind so unusual. Once, when her husband attempted to enter her dressing-room, she slammed the door in his face, and bolted it on the inside. The play proceeded as usual till we came to the well-known scene of Cleopatra's suicide in the last act. The actor who played the clown was ushered in by Cleopatra's handmaidens, and in answer* to my question, " Hast thon the pretty worm of Nilus there that kills and hurts not ? " delivered the speech set down for him. While waiting for my cue, I was harrassed by a sound for which 1 could give no account. It was a gentle " whirr" like a dry pea rattling in its pod, I tried dreamily to localise this noise ; and it is a curious instance of the difficulty of decision in the.se cases that it was not until 1 had actually taken the basket into my hand that I found that the sound was caused by something inside it,

The exigencies of the stage leave no time for hesitation. Come what may the business of a scene must not stop. I took the basket from the clown, and, and after speaking the lines which precede the action, raised the lid, and took what I presumed was the usual "property" snake from its interior. I shall never forget the shudder of repulsion that ran over my body as I felt the clammy, oozing thing which I had grasped. A sort of restriction of the muscles took place which prevented my loosing my hold, even when I saw that it contained a large rattlesnake, which, stirred to a high pitch of anger by its restraint, was drawing back its head, with its neck in exactly the shape of ! a note of interrogation, its mouth open, and its^ little eyes sparkling with rage, whilst it agitated its rattle savagely, In another moment it darted its nose against my neck with a force that was startling, and, over- • come with sickening horror, I fainted. j When I came to myself I was suffering an intolerably burning pain in my neck. Saul Clay was standing near the sofa in the dressingroom, to which I had been carried after I had fainted. In. a few words of deep feeling he told me that he had witnessed the accident, and, though not able to prevent the snake biting me, had applied the rough, but generally effective, frontier remedy of placing some gunpowder upon the bleeding wound and igniting it. It was to this readiness of action on his part that I probably owed my life. The snake had escaped in the confusion. I was brought to the belief that, but for Saul's remedy my fate would have been sealed, by a shocking occurrence which happened the same night. It appeared that Mrs Calhoun had determined to leave her husband and fly with one of the cowboys already alluded to. Late in the night she took the keys of the building from her husband's pocket, and came to the theatre, probably to procure some expensive dresses which were in her room behind the scenes Whilst groping about for a light she must have trodden upon the snake, which probably dropped through a chink in the stage into her apartment ; and when the janitor came in the morning, he found her stiff in death. Some letters in a man's hand which were discovered in her pocket, explained her plans. This painful event broke up the company. Learning that I was about to undertake a tedious journey back to New York, the good deacon persuaded me to remain with him till I might be able to hear of another engagement. I remained, and it was not longsbef ore one was offered me. The most perspicacious of my readers will have already foreseen that it came from Saul Clay, and that the part which I was to fill was that of his wife. I accepted the role, and he says that I fill it to satisfaction ; in fact, " leave nothing to be desired." A blue mark on my neck, which nothing can erase, is the only momento which I possess of the painful accident which led to our marriage. — London Society.