On all four sides of the court the seated
multitudes rose rank above rank, forming sloping terraces that were rich with color.
A tremulous enthusiasm seized upon the multitude. That stately form, combining the leader and the saint, so gray, so dimly seen, in such an ancient garb, could only belong to some old champion of the righteous cause, whom the oppressor's drum had summoned from his grave.
Sir Edmund Andros looked at the old man; then he cast his hard and cruel eye over the multitude, and beheld them burning with that lurid wrath, so difficult to kindle or to quench; and again he fixed his gaze on the aged form, which stood obscurely in an open space, where neither friend nor foe had thrust himself.
The Frenchman and the two Americans had by this time entered the enclosure reserved in the center of the
multitude. They were accompanied by the members of the Gun Club, and by deputations sent from all the European Observatories.
After the visitor had gone a brilliant and gorgeous city appeared upon the mountain top, clearly visible to the eyes of the gaily dressed
multitude of Phanfasms that lived there.
This building appeared to be the head-quarters of the valley, where all flying rumours concentrated; and to have seen it filled with a crowd of the natives, all males, conversing in animated clusters, while
multitudes were continually coming and going, one would have thought it a kind of savage Exchange, where the rise and fall of Polynesian Stock was discussed.
The whole steamer from end to end rang with frantic cheering that was taken up first by one and then by all in the crowding
multitude of ships and boats that was driving out to sea.
And the incorruptible Professor walked too, averting his eyes from the odious
multitude of mankind.
But he opposes to me -- with a young man's over-softness, albeit wise beyond his years -- that it were wronging the very nature of woman to force her to lay open her heart's secrets in such broad daylight, and in presence of so great a
multitude. Truly, as I sought to convince him, the shame lay in the commission of the sin, and not in the showing of it forth.
This feat of horsemanship again attracted the applause of the
multitude.
I know and feel that I am enchanted, and that is enough to ease my conscience; for it would weigh heavily on it if I thought that I was not enchanted, and that in a aint-hearted and cowardly way I allowed myself to lie in this cage, defrauding
multitudes of the succour I might afford to those in need and distress, who at this very moment may be in sore want of my aid and protection."
Turning like a headed deer, he shot, with the swiftness of an arrow, through a pillar of forked flame, and passing the whole
multitude harmless, he appeared on the opposite side of the clearing.