Crazy Radio eBooks

Artois followed with
Hermione, and Gaspare came last. The exit from the enclosure was
difficult, as many people were pouring in through the narrow opening,
and others, massed together outside the wooden barrier, were gazing at
the seated women within; but at length they reached the end of the
Piazza, and caught a glimpse of the Masaniello doll, which faced a
portrait of the Madonna del Carmine framed in fire. Beyond, to the
right, above the heads of the excited multitude, rose the pale-pink
globe of the fire-balloon, and as for a moment they stood still to
look at it the band struck up a sonorous march, the balloon moved
sideways, swayed, heeled over slightly like a sailing-yacht catching
the breeze beyond the harbor bar, recovered itself, and lifted the
blazing car above the gesticulating arms of the people. A long murmur
followed it as it glided gently away, skirting the prodigious belfry
with the apparent precaution of a living thing that longed for, and
sought, the dim freedom of the sky.


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