And the phalanx, armed with scythes, bill-hooks, axes, hoes, and guns,
reunited in the square before the church. And all cried: "San
Pantaleone!"
Don Consolo, terrified by the din, had taken refuge in a stall behind
the altar. A handful of fanatics, led by Giacobbe, made their way into
the principal chapel, forced the bronze grille, and went into the
underground chamber where the bust of the saint was kept. Three lamps,
fed with olive oil, burned softly in the damp air of the sacristy,
where in a glass case the Christian idol glittered, with its white head
surrounded by a broad gilt halo; and the walls were hidden under the
wealth of native offerings.
When the idol, borne on the shoulders of four herculean men, appeared
at last between the pillars and shone in the auroral light, a long gasp
of passion ran through the waiting crowd, and a quiver of joy passed
like a breath of wind over all their faces. And the column moved away,
the enormous head of the saint oscillating above, with its empty
eye-sockets turned to the front.
Now through the sky, in the deep, diffused glow, brighter meteors
ploughed their furrows; groups of thin clouds broke away from the hem
of the vapor zone and floated off, dissolving slowly. The whole town of
Radusa stood out like a smouldering mountain of ashes. Behind and
before, as far as eye could reach, the country lay in an indistinctly
lucent mass. A great singing of frogs filled the sonorous solitude.
On the river-road Pallura's wagon blocked the way. It was empty, but
still soiled, here and there, with blood. Angry curses broke suddenly
from the mob. Giacobbe shouted:
"Let us put the saint in it!"
So the bust was placed in the wagon-bed and drawn by many arms into the
ford. The battleline thus crossed the frontier. Metallic gleams ran
along the files. The parted water broke in luminous spray, and the
current flamed away red between the poplars, in the distance, towards
the quadrangular towers. Mascalico showed itself on a little hill,
among olive trees, asleep. The dogs were barking here and there, with a
persistent fury of reply. The column, issuing from the ford, left the
public road and advanced rapidly straight across country. The silver
bust was borne again on men's shoulders, and towered above their heads
amid the tall, odorous grain, starred with bright fireflies.
Suddenly a shepherd in his straw hut, where he lay to guard the grain,
seized with mad panic at sight of so many armed men, started to run up
the hill, yelling, "Help! Help!" And his screams echoed in the olive
grove.
Then it was that the Radusani charged. Among tree-trunks and dry reeds
the silver saint tottered, ringing as he struck low branches, and
glittering momentarily at every steep place in the path. Ten, twelve,
twenty guns, in a vibrating flash, rattled their shot against the mass
of houses. Crashes, then cries, were heard; then a great commotion.
Doors were opened; others were slammed shut. Window-panes fell
shattered. Vases fell from the church and broke on the street. In the
track of the assailants a white smoke rose quietly up through the
incandescent air. They all, blinded and in bestial rage, cried, "Kill!
kill!"
A group of fanatics remained about San Pantaleone. Atrocious insults
for San Gonselvo broke out amid waving scythes and brandished hooks:
"Thief! Thief! Beggar! The candles! The candles!"
Other bands took the houses by assault, breaking down the doors with
hatchets. And as they fell, unhinged and shivered, San Pantaleone's
followers leaped in, howling, to kill the defenders.
The women, half-naked, took refuge in corners, imploring pity. They
warded off the blows, grasping the weapons and cutting their fingers.
They rolled at full length on the floor, amid heaps of blankets and
sheets.
Giacobbe, long, quick, red as a Turkish scimitar, led the persecution,
stopping ever and anon to make sweeping imperious gestures over the
heads of the others with a great scythe. Pallid, bare-headed, he held
the van, in the name of San Pantaleone. More than thirty men followed
him. They all had a dull, confused sense of walking through a
conflagration, over quaking ground, and beneath a blazing vault ready
to crumble.
But from all sides began to come the defenders, the Mascalicesi, strong
and dark as mulattos, sanguinary foes, fighting with long spring-bladed
knives, and aiming at the belly and the throat, with guttural cries at
every blow.
The melee rolled away, step by step, towards the church. From the roofs
of two or three houses flames were already bursting. A horde of women
and children, wan-eyed and terror-stricken, were fleeing headlong among
the olive trees. Then the hand-to-hand struggle between the males,
unimpeded by tears and lamentations, became more concentrated and
ferocious.
Under the rust-colored sky, the ground was strewn with corpses. Broken
imprecations were hissed through the teeth of the wounded; and
steadily, through all the clamor, still came the cry of the Radusani:
"The candles! The candles!"
But the enormous church door of oak, studded with nails, remained
barred. The Mascalicesi defended it against the pushing crowd and the
axes. The white, impassive silver saint oscillated in the thick of the
fight, still upheld on the shoulders of the four giants, who refused to
fall, though bleeding from head to foot. It was the supreme desire of
the assailants to place their idol on the enemy's altar.
Now while the Mascalicesi fought like lions, performing prodigies on
the stone steps, Giacobbe suddenly disappeared around the corner of the
building, seeking an undefended opening through which to enter the
sacristy. And beholding a narrow window not far from the ground, he
climbed up to it, wedged himself into its embrasure, doubled up his
long body, and succeeded in crawling through. The cordial aroma of
incense floated in the solitude of God's house. Feeling his way in the
dark, guided by the roar of the fight outside, he crept towards the
door, stumbling against chairs and bruising his face and hands.
The furious thunder of the Radusan axes was echoing from the tough oak,
when he began to force the lock with an iron bar, panting, suffocated
by a violent agonizing palpitation which diminished his strength,
blind, giddy, stiffened by the pain of his wounds, and dripping with
tepid blood.
"San Pantaleone! San Pantaleone!" bellowed the hoarse voices of his
comrades outside, redoubling their blows as they felt the door slowly
yield. Through the wood came to his ears the heavy thump of falling
bodies, the quick thud of knife-thrusts nailing some one through the
back. And a grand sentiment, like the divine uplift of the soul of a
hero saving his country, flamed up then in that bestial beggar's heart.