In any event, ere long they made their way onto the ballroom floor, even as a lively gavotte was in progress. The seeds of confusion were quickly sown. Magrit announced loudly that she was here to clean the floor, and set about that task with great vigor, upsetting at once four pairs of dancers with great swipes of her mop. Then, as the substance which she had proclaimed to be soap spread its oily way across vast stretches of the ballroom surface, aided in this progress by the selfsame swipes of this selfsame mop, not to mention the profligacy with which she used the substance itself, it soon became clear that the soap was not soap at all but rather some foul product of the witch’s alchemy, the which was not only malodorous in the extreme but possessed of the properties of a most efficacious lubricant. Then, as fierce argument erupted between her fishwife self and the irate majordomo come to put a stop to this unseemly swabbing in the midst of revelry, she managed, in the vehemence of her gesticulations, to upend the entire contents of the very large pail. The noxious fluid flooded the dance floor.
Now did a multitude of couples join the initial four, sprawled on the floor, writhing about, howling at the stench, falling again and again as they tried to rise, one stalwart captain of the marines even—sad to relate—stabbing himself in the thigh with his sword, the which he foolishly attempted to use as a crutch; another dashing leftenant of the cavalry—sadder to relate—stabbing his comely partner in her thigh with the sword he had earlier drawn in a demonstration of the saber dance for which the hussars of Pryggia are justly famous; and—saddest of all to relate—yet another gallant officer, this a portly colonel of the artillery, disemboweling himself in his fall upon the sword let fall by his immediate superior, the yet more portly general of the artillery, the which august warrior had held this weapon high, just prior to his unfortunate encounter with the witch Magrit’s pseudo-soap, in a glorious gesture of praise for the happy couple in whose honor the festivities were taking place.
The initial bloodletting was but prologue to massacre. For Les Six now heaped chaos onto confusion, charging about with rhinocerine ill grace, attempting to aid divers aristocrats in distress, only, through their oafish clumsiness, to drop half-risen barons onto prone magnates; to elbow still-standing matrons onto prostrate dames in their servile eagerness to aid crawling countesses to their feet, which latter subjects of their assistance invariably suffered mangled fingers, broken toes and bruised jaws in the process of rescue; to slip and fall themselves, time and time again, invariably in such a manner as to flatten what few shaky knots of notables had managed to rise ensemble to their feet, like wheat trampled by oxen.
Then—tragedy piled onto fiasco! A squad of soldiery summoned by officials charged onto the scene, halberds held ready to deal with disruption. Alas, no sooner did this energetic band of warriors charge onto the floor than their feet went flying out from under them. Reacting with natural instinct, the soldiers let go their halberds, which fearsome weapons went sailing into the large knot of eminent strugglers-to-their-feet in the very center of the ballroom floor.
Many were the great inheritances come into that moment. Though even here disorder reigned, as exemplified by the fate of the oldest son of the Ozarean shipping magnate, who, even as he watched his father expire before him, run through by a halberd, had the delighted expression on his face as he contemplated his sudden fortune removed by yet another halberd, the which removed his head altogether, plopping it fortuitously into the hands of his brother, the next oldest son, who in turn soon lost his grin at his own unexpected turn of fortune when, cavorting about his father’s corpse and holding the severed head of his brother high, he slipped and fell bellyfirst onto the upended blade of yet a third halberd stuck to the floor, providing another nuance to the old saw: “Easy come, easy go.”
The first phase of their plot a smashing success, Magrit and her accomplices immediately set about the implementation of the next. Now posing as a nurse and her assistants, the seven took advantage of the total confusion to guide a full score of dazed and bleeding notables into a portion of the dance floor which had been set aside for the use of the servants, and for that reason segregated from the ballroom proper by a large curtain. There did Magrit, in the tone of voice of the experienced nurse, a tone, as all know, which brooks no dispute, order the sexes separated by yet another curtain, quickly drawn by Les Six, following which she ordered all clothing removed that she might inspect the injuries of the eminent wounded. No sooner said than done, she collecting the clothing of the females, the first through the third of Les Six, that of the males in the adjoining alcove. The clothing now collected, the fourth through the six of Les Six slashed the ropes suspending the divers curtains, thereby exposing the naked bodies of a full score of the most prominent personages of Ozar and Prygg to the ogling stares of their brethren on the main floor of the ballroom.