"Let us return and seek for Sir Geoffrey. It will be shameful if we
leave him trapped yonder like a rat."
Dick nodded, and making a wide circuit to avoid the maddened crowd, they
came safely to the wrecked stand where they had last seen Sir Geoffrey
talking with the Doge. Every minute indeed the mob grew thinner, since
the most of them had already passed, treading the life out of those who
fell as they went.
From this stand more than three fourths of those who were seated there
had already broken out, since it had not fallen utterly, and by good
fortune was open on all sides. Some, however, tangled in the canvas
roof, were still trying to escape. Other poor creatures had been crushed
to death, or, broken-limbed, lay helpless, or, worse still, were held
down beneath the fallen beams.
Several of these they freed, whereon those who were unharmed at once
ran away without thanking them. But for a long while they could find
no trace of Sir Geoffrey. Indeed, they were near to abandoning their
search, for the sights and sounds were sickening even to men who were
accustomed to those of battlefields, when Dick's quick ears caught the
tones of an English voice calling for help. Apparently it came from the
back of the Doge's tribune, where lay a heap of dead. Gaily dressed folk
who had fallen in the flight and been crushed, not by the earthquake,
but by the feet of their fellows.
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