If Marguerite had nearly fainted from fear, she was now pale with delight.
"Dumiger, Dumiger forever!" again shouted the crowd; "where is the laurel? where is the triumph? Greatest amongst his citizens, Dumiger has won!"
But at that moment the stranger came forward with a paper in his hand. The Count's face, which had been overspread with anger and shame at these shouts, was again lit up with hope, for after Dumiger's his son's was evidently the best.
"You mistake, my friends," said this man: "Dumiger is not a citizen of Dantzic, but of Hamburg, and the clock belongs to that noblest of free cities."
"Madman! fool!" burst from the astonished crowd; "we all know Dumiger, his family are eminent in the list of our freemen—you are mad! Grand Master, proclaim that Dumiger has won the prize, that Dumiger is great."
Joy thrilled through Marguerite's frame.
The Grand Master rose, and his voice trembled with anxiety and secret pleasure as he spoke.
"It is too true," he said; "the clock is sold to Hamburg, and Dumiger has lost his rights of citizenship here by becoming a freeman of that town. The prize, therefore, in accordance with the decision of the council, is adjudged to the second—to my son."
Then the anger of the people rose, wild and savage; in one moment, like the bursting of a thunder-cloud, the whole aspect of the place had changed.