The sad news spread like lightning. People crowded around the wagon,
and craned their necks to see, thinking no longer of the threats in the
sky, because struck by the unexpected happening and filled with that
natural ferocious curiosity which the sight of blood awakens.
"He is dead? What killed him?"
Pallura lay on his back upon the boards, with a broad wound in the
middle of his forehead, with one ear torn, with gashes on his arms, his
sides, and one thigh. A warm stream flowed down to his chin and neck,
staining his shirt and forming dark, shining clots on his breast, his
leathern belt, and even his breeches. Giacobbe hung over the body; all
the rest waited around him; an auroral flush lighted up their perplexed
faces; and at that moment of silence, from the river-bank arose the
song of the frogs, and bats skimmed back and forth above the heads of
the crowd.
Suddenly Giacobbe, straightening up, with one cheek bloody, cried:
"He is not dead. He still breathes."
A hollow murmur ran through the crowd, and the nearest strained forward
to look. The anxiety of those at a distance commenced to break into
clamor. Two women brought a jug of water, another some strips of linen.
A youth held out a gourd full of wine.
The wounded man's face was washed; the flow of blood from his forehead
was checked; his head was raised. Then voices inquired loudly the cause
of this deed. The hundred pounds of wax were missing; only a few
fragments of candles remained in the cracks of the wagon-bed.
In the commotion their minds grew more and more inflamed, exasperated,
and contentious. And as an old hereditary hatred burned in them against
the town of Mascalico, on the opposite bank of the river, Giacobbe said
venomously, in a hoarse voice:
"What if the candles have been offered to San Gonselvo?"
It was like the first flash of a conflagration! The spirit of
church-rivalry awoke all at once in these people brutalized by many
years of blind, savage worship of their own one idol. The fanatic's
words flew from mouth to mouth. And beneath the tragic dull-red sky,
the raging multitude resembled a tribe of mutinous gypsies.
The name of the saint broke from all throats, like a war-cry. The most
excited hurled curses towards the river, and waved their arms and shook
their fists. Then all these faces blazing with anger, and reddened also
by the unusual light,--all these faces, broad and massive, to which
their gold ear-rings and thick overhanging hair gave a wild, barbaric
character,--all these faces turned eagerly towards the man lying there,
and grew soft with pity. Women, with pious care, tried to bring him
back to life. Loving hands changed the cloths on his wounds, sprinkled
water in his face, set the gourd of wine to his lips, made a sort of
pillow under his head.
"Pallura, poor Pallura, won't you answer?" He lay supine, his eyes
closed, his mouth half open, with brown soft hair on his cheeks and
chin, the gentle beauty of youth still showing in his features
contracted with pain. From beneath the bandage on his forehead a mere
thread of blood trickled down over his temples; at the corners of his
mouth stood little beads of pale red foam, and from his throat issued a
faint broken hiss, like the sound of a sick man gargling. About him
attentions, questions, feverish glances multiplied. The mare from time
to time shook her head and neighed in the direction of the houses. An
atmosphere as of an impending hurricane hung over the whole town.
Then from the square rang out the screams of a woman, of a mother. They
seemed all the louder for the sudden hushing of all other voices, and
an enormous woman, suffocated in her fat, broke through the crowd and
hurried to the wagon, crying aloud. Being heavy and unable to climb
into it, she seized her son's feet, with sobbing words of love, with
such sharp broken cries and such a terribly comic expression of grief,
that all the bystanders shuddered and averted their faces.
"Zaccheo! Zaccheo! My heart, my joy!" screamed the widow unceasingly,
kissing the feet of the wounded man and dragging him to her towards the
ground.
The wounded man stirred, his mouth was contorted by a spasm, but
although he opened his eyes and looked up, they were veiled with damp,
so that he could not see. Big tears began to well forth at the corners
of his eyelids and roll down over his cheeks and neck. His mouth was
still awry. A vain effort to speak was betrayed by the hoarse whistling
in his throat. And the crowd pressed closer, saying:
"Speak, Pallura! Who hurt you? Who hurt you? Speak! Speak!"
Beneath this question was a trembling rage, an intensifying fury, a
deep tumult of reawakened feelings of vengeance; and the hereditary
hatred boiled in every heart.
"Speak! Who hurt you? Tell us! Tell us!"
The dying man opened his eyes again; and as they were holding his hands
tightly, perhaps this warm living contact gave him a momentary
strength, for his gaze quickened and a vague stammering sound came to
his lips. The words were not yet distinguishable. The panting breath of
the multitude could be heard through the silence. Their eyes had an
inward flame, because all expected one single word.
"Ma--Ma--Mascalico--"
"Mascalico! Mascalico!" shrieked Giacobbe, who was bending over him,
with ear intent to snatch the weak syllables from his dying lips.
An immense roar greeted the cry. The multitude swayed at first as if
tempest-swept. Then, when a voice, dominating the tumult, gave the
order of attack, the mob broke up in haste. A single thought drove
these men forward, a thought which seemed to have been stamped by
lightning upon all minds at once: to arm themselves with some weapon.
Towering above the consciousness of all arose a sort of bloody
fatality, beneath the great tawny glare of the heavens, and in the
electric odor emanating from the anxious fields.