h, dear Mr. Hirsch, forgive me! forgive me!"

But forcibly he dragged her to the long room where they stored their
costumes, and turned the key in the door.

Jenny fell down on her knees. With uplifted eyes and folded hands,
trembling as a leaf, the tears streaming down her cheeks, she tried to
arouse his mercy; in answer to her supplications, he took from the
wall a wire whip, and said:

"Lie down."

With despair she flung herself at his feet, nearly dying from fright.
Every nerve of her body quivered; but vainly she pressed her pallid
lips to his polished boots. Her alarm and pleading seemed to arouse
the demon in him more than ever. Grasping her roughly, he threw her
violently on a heap of dresses, and in an instant, after trying to
stop the kicking of her feet, he began beating her cruelly.

"Orso! Orso!" she shouted.

About this moment the door shook on its hinges, rattled, creaked and
gave way, and half of it, pushed in with a tremendous force, fell with
a crash upon the ground.

In this opening stood Orso.

The wire whip fell from the hand of the manager, and his face became
deadly pale, because Orso looked ferocious. His eyes were bloodshot,
his lips covered with foam, his head inclined to one side like a
bull's, and his whole body was crouched and gathered, as if ready to
spring.

"Get out!" cried the manager, trying to hide his fear behind a show of
authority.

The pent-up dam was already broken. Orso, who was usually as obedient
to every motion as a dog, this time did not move, but leaning his head
still more to one side, he moved slowly and threateningly toward the
"artist of the whip," his iron muscles taut as whipcords.

"Help! help!" cried the manager.

They heard him.

Four brawny negroes from the stables ran in through the broken door
and fell upon Orso. A terrible fight ensued, upon which the manager
looked with chattering teeth. For a long time you could see nothing
but a tangled mass of dark bodies wrestling with convulsive movements,
rolling on the ground in a writhing heap; in the silence which
followed sometimes was heard a groan, a snort, loud short breathing,
the gritting of teeth.

In a moment one of the negroes, as if by a superhuman force, was sent
from this formless mass, whirling headlong through the air, and fell
at the feet of the manager, striking his skull with great force on the
ground; soon a second flew out; then from the center of this turbulent
group Orso's body