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.
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