Two or three
lusty Apostles came to the rescue without delay. They threw the youth
down, stamped on his face, pounded his abdomen, pulled his hair out in
handfuls, and otherwise treated him exactly as if the thing were
happening in Russia. This spectacle was too much for the tobacconist's
sense of honour. With unwonted sprightliness he vaulted over the
writhing cluster and summoned a municipal policeman. The officer was on
the spot in a twinkling, sword and trumpet in hand. And there, in all
conscience, the matter ought to have rested--with the identification and
bestowal in custody of the turbulent parties.
But frenzy hung in the air; a red cloud of insanity was hovering over
Nepenthe. Although the volcano continued to behave in exemplary
fashion, although the clergy had done their utmost to allay popular
apprehensions, the native mind had not calmed down since the news
concerning the Saint Elias fountain and those other portents had been
disseminated. The inhabitants were in a state of suppressed alarm and
ready, at the least provocation, to burst out into some fiendish act of
folly.
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