th the chain. While they were thus
situated, the dwarf, who had followed noiselessly at their heels,
inciting them to keep up the commotion, took hold of their own chain
at the intersection of the two portions which crossed the circle
diametrically and at right angles. Here, with the rapidity of thought,
he inserted the hook from which the chandelier had been wont to depend;
and, in an instant, by some unseen agency, the chandelier-chain was
drawn so far upward as to take the hook out of reach, and, as an
inevitable consequence, to drag the ourang-outangs together in close
connection, and face to face.

The masqueraders, by this time, had recovered, in some measure,
from their alarm; and, beginning to regard the whole matter as a
well-contrived pleasantry, set up a loud shout of laughter at the
predicament of the apes.

"Leave them to me!" now screamed Hop-Frog, his shrill voice making
itself easily heard through all the din. "Leave them to me. I fancy I
know them. If I can only get a good look at them, I can soon tell who
they are."

Here, scrambling over the heads of the crowd, he managed to get to the
wall; when, seizing a flambeau from one of the Caryatides, he returned,
as he went, to the centre of the room-leaping, with the agility of a
monkey, upon the kings head, and thence clambered a few feet up the
chain; holding down the torch to examine the group of ourang-outangs,
and still screaming: "I shall soon find out who they are!"

And now, while the whole assembly (the apes included) were convulsed
with laughter, the jester suddenly uttered a shrill whistle; when the
chain flew violently up for about thirty feet--dragging with it the
dismayed and struggling ourang-outangs, and leaving them suspended in
mid-air between the sky-light and the floor. Hop-Frog, clinging to the
chain as it rose, still maintained his relative position in respect to
the eight maskers, and still (as if nothing were the matter) continued
to thrust his torch down toward them, as though endeavoring to discover
who they were.

So thoroughly astonished was the whole company at this ascent, that a
dead silence, of about a minute's duration, ensued. It was broken by
just such a low, harsh, grating sound, as had before attracted the
attention of the king and his councillors when the former threw the wine
in the face of Trippetta. But, on the present occasion, there could be
no question as to whence the sound issued. It came from the fang--li