XVIII
THE CAPITOL ALIGHT
First of all, within the State House, there was burgeoning of the separate lights of the wall brackets and then the great chandeliers burst into bloom.
Electrician Torrey possessed a quick understanding and was in the habit of doing a thorough job whenever he tackled anything. He threw in the switches as rapidly as he could operate them.
Story by story the great building was flooded with glory that mounted to the upper windows and overflowed into the night with a veritable cascade of brilliancy when the thousand bulbs of the dome's circlet flashed their splendor against the sky. The lamps of the broad front portico and its approaches added the final, dazzling touch to the general illumination.
From a sullen, gloomy hulk of a building, with its few lights showing like glowering eyes in ambush, the State House was transformed into a temple of glory, thrust into the heavens from the top of Capitol Hill, a torch that signaled comforting candor, a reassuring beacon.
The surprise of the happening stilled the uproar.
Neither Morrison, inside, nor the mob, outside, was bothering with the mental analysis of the psychology of the thing!
Something had happened! There was The Light! It threw into sharp relief every upturned face in the massed throng. Their voices remained hushed.
Commander Lanigan, standing above them on a marble rail, his figure outlined against a pergola column, did his best to put some of his emotions into speech. He shouted, "Some night-blooming cereus, I'll tell the world!"