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There was a tumult as of pandemonium or of pantheon, in which the words
of Gwynplaine were lost.
Amidst it all, there was heard but one word of Gwynplaine's: "Beware!"
Ralph, Duke of Montagu, recently down from Oxford, and still a beardless
youth, descended from the bench of dukes, where he sat the nineteenth in
order, and placed himself in front of Gwynplaine, with his arms folded.
In a sword there is a spot which cuts sharpest, and in a voice an accent
which insults most keenly. Montagu spoke with that accent, and sneering
with his face close to that of Gwynplaine, shouted,--"What are you
talking about?"
"I am prophesying," said Gwynplaine.
The laughter exploded anew; and below this laughter, anger growled its
continued bass. One of the minors, Lionel Cranfield Sackville, Earl of
Dorset and Middlesex, stood upon his seat, not smiling, but grave as
became a future legislator, and, without saying a word, looked at
Gwynplaine with his fresh twelve-year old face, and shrugged his
shoulders. Whereat the Bishop of St. Asaph's whispered in the ear of the
Bishop of St. David's, who was sitting beside him, as he pointed to
Gwynplaine, "There is the fool;" then pointing to the child, "there is
the sage."
A chaos of complaint rose from amidst the confusion of exclamations:--
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