Immediately there was a commotion. A score or more workmen, like elves, swarmed beneath the immense swelling sides of the boat, and with rhythmical strokes of sledge hammers, drove in wedges and removed the long pieces of timber placed in a slanting position against the ship. Thus lifted, the _Merida_ rested completely on the greased ways. Only one log now restrained the six hundred feet of her impatient length. Was it the mother's lingering hold? Red below the water-line, black above, her new anchor turned to silver in the sunlight, the _Merida_ was without blemish, save for the spots left when the shores were hauled down; and these spots workmen, carrying long-handled brushes, touched rapidly with paint. At last all was in readiness and the dull sound of a saw passing through wood could be heard. The silence grew so deep that the word given by the man wearing the eyeglass was heard by the spectators. He spoke quietly; the saw passed through the log. The girl with the fluttering boa was seen to raise her hand; there was a shattering of glass, and with one plunge, one impulse of superb motion, the new ship slid down the ways. Swiftly, smoothly, she glided forward and the laughing water seemed to rise to meet her. Instantly from an hundred throats a shout went up. The boats watching from the river began to whistle, the locomotives on the surrounding railroads shrieked shrilly. The workmen threw their caps into the air and followed as fast as they could along the line of the deserted stocks. The girl in the white boa waved her handkerchief. But the boats on the river had their own way. Shrilly, loudly, continuously, they tooted; while those still in the slips,--double-turreted monitors and squat battleships,--without bells, without whistles, without cannon,--by the very eagerness with which they seemed to await their turn, added mystically to the commotion. _Free_! This was the one thought expressed on every side. It was as if man, by the intensity of his craving to escape bonds, communicated this desire to the objects of his creation. The impulse of the launching had carried the new ship to the middle of the stream, and there, hailed by the enthusiasm of the shore and the river, she floated, half-turning as if looking back coquettishly at the land; while over her a flock of birds, little specks in air, circled in an abandonment of freedom. Amid all the tumult only one figure had remained without stirring. The old man with the stick in his hand was a stranger; until that day he had never been seen in the place. Yet, at the moment of the launch, he alone reached the highest pitch of exultation of which the human spirit is capable.