There was some uneasy shuffling of feet amongst those sections of the crowd who didn't feel that this was absolutely axiomatic.
'We can resist you, you know!' growled the man. 'Can't we, everyone. What was that slogan about being united, Sergeant?'
'Er,' said Colon, feeling his spine turn to ice.
'I warn you, dragon, the human spirit is-'
They never found out what it was, or at least what he thought it was, although possibly in the dark hours of a sleepless night some of them might have remembered the subsequent events and formed a pretty good and gut-churning insight, to whit, that one of the things sometimes forgotten about the human spirit is that while it is, in the right conditions, noble and brave and wonderful, it is also, when you get right down to it, only human.
The dragon flame caught him full on the chest. For a moment he was visible as a white- hot outline before the neat, black remains spiralled down into a little puddle of melting cobbles.
The flame vanished.
The crowd stood like statues, not knowing if it was staying put or running that would attract more attention.
The dragon stared down, curious to see what they were going to do next.
Colon felt that, as the only civic official present, it was up to him to take charge of the situation. He coughed.
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