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Phileas Fogg and his companions, mingling in the rear ranks of the crowd,
followed; and in two minutes they reached the banks of the stream,
and stopped fifty paces from the pyre, upon which still lay the rajah's corpse.
In the semi-obscurity they saw the victim, quite senseless, stretched out
beside her husband's body. Then a torch was brought, and the wood,
heavily soaked with oil, instantly took fire.
At this moment Sir Francis and the guide seized Phileas Fogg, who,
in an instant of mad generosity, was about to rush upon the pyre.
But he had quickly pushed them aside, when the whole scene suddenly changed.
A cry of terror arose. The whole multitude prostrated themselves,
terror-stricken, on the ground.
The old rajah was not dead, then, since he rose of a sudden,
like a spectre, took up his wife in his arms, and descended from
the pyre in the midst of the clouds of smoke, which only
heightened his ghostly appearance.
Fakirs and soldiers and priests, seized with instant terror,
lay there, with their faces on the ground, not daring to lift
their eyes and behold such a prodigy.
The inanimate victim was borne along by the vigorous arms which
supported her, and which she did not seem in the least to burden.
Mr. Fogg and Sir Francis stood erect, the Parsee bowed his head,
and Passepartout was, no doubt, scarcely less stupefied.
The resuscitated rajah approached Sir Francis and Mr. Fogg,
and, in an abrupt tone, said, "Let us be off!"
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