Shouts
of 'Pequita! Pequita!' rang out on all sides,--then 'Valdor! Valdor!'--
and then,--all suddenly,--a stentorian voice cried 'Sergius Thord!'
At that word the house became a chaos. Men in the gallery, seized by
some extraordinary impulse of doing they knew not what, and going they
knew not whither, leaped over each other's shoulders, and began to
climb down by the pillars of the balconies to the stalls,--and a
universal panic and rush ensued. Terrified women hurried from the
stalls and boxes in spite of warning, and got mixed with the maddened
crowd, a section of which, pouring out of the Opera-house came
incontinently upon the King's carriage in waiting,--and forthwith,
without any reflection as to the why or the wherefore, smashed it to
atoms! Then, singing again 'The Song of Freedom,'--the people, pouring
out from all the doors, formed into a huge battalion, and started on a
march of devastation and plunder.
Sergius Thord, grasping the situation from the first, rushed out of the
Opera-house in all haste, anxious to avert a catastrophe, but he was
too late to stop the frenzied crowd,--nothing could, or would have
stopped them at that particular moment. The fire had been too long
smouldering in their souls; and Pequita, like a little spark of fury,
had set it in a blaze. Through private ways and back streets, the King
and Queen and their sons, escorted by the alarmed manager, escaped from
the Opera unhurt,--and drove back unobserved to the Palace in a common
fiacre--and a vast multitude, waiting to see them come out by the usual
doors, and finding they did not come, vented their rage and disgust by
tearing up and smashing everything within their reach.
Pages:
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599