He's the best acrobat in the land!"
"This isn't the first time we've seen him walk up and down a rope."
"Bravo, Tibul!"
"Run!
Save yourself!
Free Prospero!"
Others were angry.
They shook their fists and bellowed:
"You won't escape, you stupid clown!"
"Faker!"
"Rebel!
They'll shoot you like a hare!"
"Watch out!
We'll pull you off that roof and drag you to the scaffold!
Ten scaffolds will be ready tomorrow!"
Tibul continued his dangerous journey.
"Where did he come from?" the people wondered. "How did he get to the square?
How did he get to the roof?"
"He escaped from the Guards," others said. "He escaped and disappeared. Then he was seen in different parts of the town, he climbed from roof to roof.
He's as quick as a cat.
And his skill came in handy.
That's why he's so famous."
Guards appeared in the square.
People were now running to the side streets to get a better view.
Tibul stepped over the railing and stood at the very edge of the roof.
He stretched out his arm.
His green cape was wound around it and fluttered like a flag.
People were used to seeing him with this cape and dressed in yellow and black harlequin tights at the fairs and market places.
Now, high up under the glass top, his small, thin striped body looked like a wasp crawling up the wall of a house.
Every time the cape flapped in the wind, it seemed as if the wasp were opening its shiny green wings.
"I hope you fall and break your neck!
They'll shoot you, wait and see!" shouted the drunken fop who had inherited a fortune from his freckled aunt.
The Guards took up their positions.
Their officer ran up and down frowning.
He had a large pistol.
His spurs were as long as runners.
Suddenly, it became very quiet.
The doctor clapped his hand to his heart, for it was jumping like an egg in boiling water.
Tibul stopped for a second at the edge of the roof.
He had to get to the other side of the square-then he could escape to the workers' quarters.
The officer stood in the middle of the square, in a bed of blue and yellow flowers.
Beside him was a pool and a fountain spouting from a round stone bowl.
"Wait!" the officer said to the soldiers. "I'll shoot him down myself.
I'm the best shot in the regiment.
I'll show you how it's done. Look!"
Nine steel cables stretched from the nine houses surrounding the square to the centre of the glass top. They supported the Star.
It was just as if nine long black rays had spread over the square from the Star's wonderful flame.
Who knows what Tibul was thinking then?
He was probably saying to himself:
"I'll cross over the square on this wire, as I walked a rope at the fair.