The queen quickened her steps in order to come up with the dauphin
before he should reach the danger which confronted him. The people
outside of the fence, when they saw the manoeuvre of the man who was
forcing his arm still farther in, stopped their shouting and lapsed
into a breathless, eager silence, as sometimes is the case in a
storm, between the successive bursts of wind and thunder.
Every one felt that the touch of that threatening arm and that
little child might be like the contact of steel and flint, and
elicit sparks which should kindle the fires of another revolution.
It was this feeling which made the crowd silent; the same feeling
compelled the queen to quicken her steps, so that she was close to
the dauphin before he had reached this terrible turnpike-bar.
"Come here, my son," cried the queen, "give me your hand!"
But before she had time to grasp the hand of the little prince, he
sprang forward and stood directly in front of the outstretched arm.
"My God! what will he do?" whispered the queen to herself.
At the same instant, there resounded from behind the fence a loud,
mighty bravo, and a thousand voices took it up and cried, "Bravo!
bravo!"
The dauphin had stretched up his little white hand and laid it upon
the brown, clinched fist that was stretched out toward him, and
nodded pleasantly at the man who looked down so fiercely upon him.
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