Once a man mixes with a mob his individual liberty disappears. He was the more easily carried on as he was at the head of the party.
As they kept up the shouting, "Long live Necker—no more foreign troops—down with the outlandish cutthroats!" he added his lusty voice to the others.
Any superiority is always appreciated by the masses. The shrill, weak voice of the Parisian, spoilt by wine bibbing or want of proper food, was nowhere beside the countryman's fresh, full and sonorous roar, so that without too much jostling, shoving and knocking about, Billet finally reached the litter.
In another ten minutes, one of the bearers, whose enthusiasm had been too great for his strength, gave up his place to him.
Billet, you will observe, had got on.
Only the propagator of Gilbert's doctrines a day before, he was now one of the instruments in the triumph of Necker and the Duke of Orleans.
But he had hardly arrived at his post than he thought of Pitou and the borrowed horse. What had become of them?
While nearing the litter, Billet looked and, through the flare of the torches accompanying the turn-out, and by the lamps illumining all the house windows, he beheld a kind of walking platform formed of half a dozen men shouting and waving their arms. In the midst it was easy to discern Pitou and his long arms.
He did what he could to defend Maggie, but spite of all the horse was stormed and was carrying all who could clamber on her back and hang on to the harness and her tail. In the enlarging darkness she resembled an elephant loaded with hunters going for the tiger. Her vast neck had three or four fellows established on it, howling: "Three cheers for Orleans and Necker—down with the foreigners!"
To which Pitou answered: "All right, but you will smother Maggie among ye."