her four and twenty foaming stallions, rearing greys, which drew her triumphal car, like a broad enamelled shell on innumerable wheels, on cutting wheels so numerous, that they seemed to run into one another—a turning confusion of spokes.
The dazzling, fear-inspiring chariot rattled on with the rapidity of an arrow. And suddenly, awaking from their stupefaction, the people madly danced again and shouted the same jubilant cry. The tabours sounded, the white roses rained down, and before the queen the people prostrated themselves and paved her path with their bodies. The grey stallions foamed and reared; they came on, they came on, they trampled over the first bodies—men and women, girls and children, dressed for a festival and bedecked with flowers. . . . Over her people rode Emeralda; the innumerable wheels rattled, a confusion of spokes, revolving, cutting furrows in flesh and blood, reducing blood and human flesh to a muddy mass. But farther up they danced, farther up they sang, before casting themselves down for her Triumph. . . .
Then Emeralda, looking over her triumphal way, saw, with the keen glance of her black
