Page:The Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray Vol.20.pdf/240

212 cried Reprieve. “Reprieve!” screamed the Princess. “Reprieve!” shouted all the people. Up the scaffold stairs she sprang, with the agility of a lighter of lamps; and flinging herself in Bulbo’s arms, regardless of all ceremony, she cried out, “O my Prince! my lord! my love!' my Bulbo! Thine Angelica has been in time to save thy precious existence, sweet rosebud; to prevent thy being

nipped in thy young bloom! Had aught befallen thee, Angelica too had died, and welcomed death that joined her to her Bulbo.”

“H’m! there’s no accounting for tastes,” said Bulbo, looking so very much puzzled and uncomfortable, that the Princess, in tones of tenderest strain, asked the cause of his disquiet.

“I tell you what it is, Angelica,” said he: “since I came here, yesterday, there has been such a row, and disturbance, and quarrelling, and fighting, and chopping of heads off, and the deuce to pay, that I am inclined to go back to Crim Tartary.”