Indeed the jewellery was so plentiful and of such expensive quality that the whole row of boxes shone like a vast coronet set with thousands of precious stones.
When the music did not amuse society, the diamonds and rubies twinkled and glittered uneasily, but when Cordova was trilling her wildest they were quite still and blazed with a steady light.

Afterwards the audience would all say again what they had always said about every great lyric soprano, that it was just a wonderful instrument without a particle of feeling, that it was an over-grown canary, a human flute, and all the rest of it; but while the trills ran on the people listened in wonder and the diamonds were very quiet.
'A-a--A-a--A-a--A-a--' sang Cordova at an inconceivable pitch.
A terrific explosion shook the building to its foundations; the lights went out, and there was a long grinding crash of broken glass not far off.
In the momentary silence that followed before the inevitable panic the voice of Schreiermeyer, the manager, rang out through the darkness.
'Ladies and gentlemen! There's no danger! Keep your seats! The lights will be up directly.' And indeed the little red lamps over each door that led out, being on another circuit, were all burning quietly, but in the first moment of fright no one noticed them, and the house seemed to be quite dark.
Then the whole mass of humanity began to writhe and swell, as a frightened crowd does in the dark, so that every one feels as if all the other people were growing hugely big, as big as elephants, to smother and crush him; and each man makes himself as broad as he can, and tries to swell out his chest, and squares his elbows to keep the weight off his sides; and with the steady strain and effort every one breathes hard, and few speak, and the hard-drawn breath of thousands together makes a sound of rushing wind like bellows as enormous as houses, blowing steadily in the darkness.
'Keep your seats!' yelled Schreiermeyer desperately.
He had been in many accidents, and understood the meaning of the noises he heard.

There was death in them, death for the weak by squeezing, and smothering, and trampling underfoot.

It was a grim moment, and no one who was there has forgotten it, the manager least of all.
'It's only a fuse gone!' he shouted.

'Only a plug burnt out!' But the terrified throng did not believe, and the people pressed upon each other with the weight of hundreds of bodies, thronging from behind, towards the little red lights.