|  HE  day  of  Starlight's  execution
'had  arrived.  Excited  groups  of
citizens,  who  had  not  yet  forgotten
the  recent  scenes  in  the  Senate,
were  assembled  at  various  places
throughout  the  city  of  Amaurot,  and  the
unrestrained  fury  of  partisan  hatred  among
those  who  approved  or  condemned  the  fatal
sentence  gave  a  menacing  appearance  which
had  never  been  known  before.  All  efforts
towards  pacification  were  ineffectual,  and  so
universal  was  the  feeling,  either  for  or
against  the  condemned  conspirator,  that  only
a  few  desired  to  make  the  attempt.  Long
before  dawn  the  streets  had  begun  to  surge
with  the  restless,  clamorous,  mad  throng
and,  deserting  their  flocks  and  fields  in  the
general  frenzy,  the  people  of  the  neighboring
country  came  into  the  excited  city.
The    warmth    of   dispute    often    led  to
blows,    and,    friend   joining    friend,    riotous
numbers  were  frequently  embroiled.     Much,
74


THE   FALL    OF   UTOPIA.  75

indeed,  was  to  be  feared  from  the  increasing
contentions,  and  Amaurot  trembled  for  its
fate.
The  immediate  vicinity  of  Starlight's
place  of  confinement  was  naturally  the  point
of  centralization,  and  here  all  Utopia  seemed
assembled.  Here  was  the  scene  of  the  most
portentous  violence.
At  last  Starlight  appeared,  surrounded
by  officers  and  ghostly  counsellors,  and  the
solemn  train  began  wending  its  way  toward
the  place  of  execution.
Popular  frenzy  became  wilder  still,  and
the  hideous  riot  and  din,  spreading  wider  and
wider,  growing  louder  and  louder,  became  a
chaotic  convulsion,  a  seething  anarchy.
Starlight's  partisans  seemed  the  predom
inant  faction,  and  when  she  appeared  the
contest  for  her  release  became  indescribably
frantic.  The  sympathetic  heart  of  the
Utopian  populace  was  touched ;  their  blood
was  all  aflame.  Civil  strife,  before  unknown,
was  more  awful  for  its  novelty  ;  its  conse
quent  disasters  had  not  yet  been  learned.
