All
these are in the background. In the front of the stage stands
Napoleon, wearing a long sword and cocked hat, and the conventional
gray smalls--his hand of course stuck in his breast. At his right are
Tippoo Saib and his sons, and at his left, Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert. After a score or so of bars, the measure of the music suddenly
alters--Daniel's guardian angel flies off--the prophet and the lion
lie down to sleep together--the Grand Turk sinks into the arms of the
death-doomed slave. Nebuchadnezzar falls prostrate on the ground, and
the fiend in the gloomy cavern whips suddenly round and glares with
his green eye, as if watching for a spring upon the front row of
actors, who have now taken up their cue and commenced their
performance. Napoleon, Tippoo Saib, and Queen Victoria, dance a
three-handed reel, to the admiration of Prince Albert and a group of
lords and ladies in waiting, who nod their heads approvingly--when
br'r'r! crack! bang! at a tremendous crash of gongs and grumbling of
bass-notes, the fiend in the corner rushes forth from his lair with a
portentous howl. Away, neck or nothing, flies Napoleon, and Tippoo
scampers after him, followed by the terrified attendants; but lo! at
the precise nick of time, Queen Victoria draws a long sword from
beneath her stays, while up jumps the devouring beast from the den of
the prophet, and like a true British lion--as he doubtless was all the
while--flies at the throat of the fiend, straight as an arrow to its
mark.
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