No More Learning

The excitement among the masqueraders was prodigious, and filled the
heart of the king with glee. As had been anticipated, there were not
a few of the guests who supposed the ferocious-looking creatures to be
beasts of some kind in reality, if not precisely ourang-outangs. Many
of the women swooned with affright; and had not the king taken the
precaution to exclude all weapons from the saloon, his party might soon
have expiated their frolic in their blood. As it was, a general rush
was made for the doors; but the king had ordered them to be locked
immediately upon his entrance; and, at the dwarf's suggestion, the keys
had been deposited with him.

While the tumult was at its height, and each masquerader attentive only
to his own safety (for, in fact, there was much real danger from the
pressure of the excited crowd), the chain by which the chandelier
ordinarily hung, and which had been drawn up on its removal, might have
been seen very gradually to descend, until its hooked extremity came
within three feet of the floor.

Soon after this, the king and his seven friends having reeled about the
hall in all directions, found themselves, at length, in its centre, and,
of course, in immediate contact with the chain. While they were thus
situated, the dwarf, who had followed noiselessly at their heels,
inciting them to keep up the commotion, took hold of their own chain
at the intersection of the two portions which crossed the circle
diametrically and at right angles. Here, with the rapidity of thought,
he inserted the hook from which the chandelier had been wont to depend;
and, in an instant, by some unseen agency, the chandelier-chain was
drawn so far upward as to take the hook out of reach, and, as an
inevitable consequence, to drag the ourang-outangs together in close
connection, and face to face.

The masqueraders, by this time, had recovered, in some measure,
from their alarm; and, beginning to regard the whole matter as a
well-contrived pleasantry, set up a loud shout of laughter at the
predicament of the apes.

"Leave them to me! " now screamed Hop-Frog, his shrill voice making
itself easily heard through all the din. "Leave them to me. I fancy I
know them. If I can only get a good look at them, I can soon tell who
they are. "

Here, scrambling over the heads of the crowd, he managed to get to the
wall; when, seizing a flambeau from one of the Caryatides, he returned,
as he went, to the centre of the room-leaping, with the agility of a
monkey, upon the kings head, and thence clambered a few feet up the
chain; holding down the torch to examine the group of ourang-outangs,
and still screaming: "I shall soon find out who they are!
"

And now, while the whole assembly (the apes included) were convulsed
with laughter, the jester suddenly uttered a shrill whistle; when the
chain flew violently up for about thirty feet--dragging with it the
dismayed and struggling ourang-outangs, and leaving them suspended in
mid-air between the sky-light and the floor. Hop-Frog, clinging to the
chain as it rose, still maintained his relative position in respect to
the eight maskers, and still (as if nothing were the matter) continued
to thrust his torch down toward them, as though endeavoring to discover
who they were.

So thoroughly astonished was the whole company at this ascent, that a
dead silence, of about a minute's duration, ensued. It was broken by
just such a low, harsh, grating sound, as had before attracted the
attention of the king and his councillors when the former threw the wine
in the face of Trippetta. But, on the present occasion, there could be
no question as to whence the sound issued. It came from the fang--like
teeth of the dwarf, who ground them and gnashed them as he foamed at
the mouth, and glared, with an expression of maniacal rage, into the
upturned countenances of the king and his seven companions.

"Ah, ha! " said at length the infuriated jester. "Ah, ha! I begin to see
who these people are now! " Here, pretending to scrutinize the king more
closely, he held the flambeau to the flaxen coat which enveloped him,
and which instantly burst into a sheet of vivid flame. In less than half
a minute the whole eight ourang-outangs were blazing fiercely, amid the
shrieks of the multitude who gazed at them from below, horror-stricken,
and without the power to render them the slightest assistance.

At length the flames, suddenly increasing in virulence, forced the
jester to climb higher up the chain, to be out of their reach; and, as
he made this movement, the crowd again sank, for a brief instant, into
silence. The dwarf seized his opportunity, and once more spoke:

"I now see distinctly. " he said, "what manner of people these maskers
are. They are a great king and his seven privy-councillors,--a king who
does not scruple to strike a defenceless girl and his seven councillors
who abet him in the outrage.