He looked wildly about him.
"To me! to me!" I shouted.
He fixed his eye on mine and steadied himself. There was a terrible
silent excitement in the people, in the very air.
There was the mistake. We should have stopped then, shaken as he was,
but South, bewildered and terrified, lost control of himself: he gave
the word.
I held the rope loose--held George with my eyes--One!
I saw his lips move: he was counting with me.
Two!
His eye wandered, turned to the stage-box.
Three!
Like a flash, I saw the white upturned faces below me, the
posture-girls' gestures of horror, the dark springing figure through the
air, that wavered--and fell a shapeless mass on the floor.
There was a moment of deathlike silence, and then a wild outcry--women
fainting, men cursing and crying out in that senseless, helpless way
they have when there is sudden danger. By the time I had reached the
floor they had straightened out his shattered limbs, and two or three
doctors were fighting their way through the great crowd that was surging
about him.
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