Of course, this could not have happened if there had been the
least wind, but the air was so still that the vibration of the
cheering caused the huge lily to tremble gently as it stood there
marvellously poised; the lily of peace, surrounded by the lilies of
France! That was the design, and if you ask me how it was done, I can
only refer you to my pyrotechnist, and say that whatever a Frenchman
attempts to do he will accomplish artistically.
And now these imperturbable English, who had been seated immobile when
they thought a bomb was thrown, stood up in their carriages to get a
better view of this aerial phenomenon, cheering and waving their hats.
The lily gradually thinned and dissolved in little patches of cloud
that floated away above our heads.
'I cannot stay here longer,' groaned Simard, quaking, his nerves, like
himself, in rags. 'I see the ghosts of those I have killed floating
around me.'
'Come on, then, but do not hurry.'
There was no difficulty in getting him to London, but it was absinthe,
absinthe, all the way, and when we reached Charing Cross, I was
compelled to help him, partly insensible, into a cab. I took him
direct to Imperial Flats, and up into my own set of chambers, where I
opened my strong room, and flung him inside to sleep off his
intoxication, and subsist on bread and water when he became sober.
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