IV

Then the phalanxes, armed with scythes, with sickles, with hatchets,

with hoes and with muskets, reunited on the square before the church.

And the idolaters shouted, “Saint Pantaleone!”

Don Consolo, terrified by the turmoil, had fled to the depths of a

stall behind the altar. A handful of fanatics, conducted by Giacobbe,

penetrated the large chapel, forced its gratings of bronze, and arrived

at length in the underground passage where the bust of the Saint was

kept. Three lamps fed with olive oil burned gently in the sacristy

behind a crystal; the Christian idol sparkled with its white head

surrounded by a large solar disc, and the walls were covered over with

the rich gifts.

When the idol, borne upon the shoulders of four Hercules, appeared

presently between the pilasters of the vestibule, and shed rays from

its aureole, a long, breathless passion passed over the expectant

crowd, a noise like a joyous wind beat upon all foreheads. The column

moved. And the enormous head of the Saint oscillated on high, gazing

before it with two empty eyes.

In the heavens now passed at intervals meteors which seemed alive,

while groups of thin clouds seemed to detach themselves from the

heavens, and, while dissolving, floated slowly away. The entire country

of Radusa appeared in the background like a mountain of ashes that

might be concealing a fire, and in front of it the contour of the

country lost itself with an indistinct flash. A great chorus of frogs

disturbed the harmony of the solitude.

On the road by the river Pallura’s cart obstructed progress. It was

empty now, but bore traces of blood in many places. Irate imprecations

exploded suddenly in the silence.

Giacobbe cried, “Let us put the Saint in it!”

The bust was placed on the boards and dragged by human strength to the

ford. The procession, ready for battle, thus crossed the boundary.

Along the files metal lamps were carried, the invaded waters broke

in luminous sprays, and everywhere a red light flamed from the young

poplars in the distance, toward the quadrangular towers. Mascalico

appeared upon a little elevation, asleep in the centre of an olive

orchard.

The dogs barked here and there, with a furious persistency. The column

having issued from the ford, on abandoning the common road, advanced

with rapid steps by a direct path that cut through the fields. The

bust of silver borne anew on rugged shoulders, towered above the heads

of the men amongst the high grain, odorous and starred with living

fireflies.

Suddenly, a shepherd, who rested under a straw shed to guard the grain,

seized by a mad terror at the sight of so many armed men, began to flee

up the coast, screaming as loud as he could, “Help! Help!”

His cries echoed through the olive orchards.

Then it was that the Radusani increased their speed. Among the trunks

of trees, amid the dried reeds, the Saint of silver tottered, gave back

sonorous tinklings at the blows of the trees, became illuminated with

vivid flashes at every hint of a fall. Ten, twelve, twenty shots rained

down in a vibrating flash, one after another upon the group of houses.

One heard creaks, then cries followed by a great clamorous commotion;

several doors opened while others closed, windows fell in fragments and

vases of basil fell shivered on the road. A white smoke rose placidly

in the air, behind the path of the assailants, up to the celestial

incandescence. All blinded, in a belligerent rage, shouted, “To death!

To death!”

A group of idolaters maintained their positions around Saint

Pantaleone. Atrocious vituperations against Saint Gonselvo burst out

amongst the brandished scythes and sickles.

“Thief! Thief! Loafer! The candles!... The candles!”

Other groups besieged the doors of the houses with blows of

hatchets. And, as the doors unhinged shattered and fell, the howling

Pantaleonites burst inside, ready to kill. Half nude women fled to the

corners, imploring pity and, trying to defend themselves from the blows

by grasping the weapons and cutting their fingers, they rolled extended

on the pavement in the midst of heaps of coverings and sheets from

which oozed their flaccid turnip-fed flesh.

Giacobbe, tall, slender, flushed, a bundle of dried bones rendered

formidable by passion, director of the slaughter, stopped everywhere in

order to make a broad, commanding gesture above all heads with his huge

scythe. He walked in the front ranks, fearless, without a hat, in the

name of Saint Pantaleone. More than thirty men followed him. And all

had the confused and stupid sensation of walking in the midst of fire,

upon an oscillating earth, beneath a burning vault that was about to

shake down upon them.

But from all sides defenders began to assemble; the Mascalicesi, strong

and dark as mulattoes, sanguinary, who struck with long unyielding

knives, and tore the stomach and throat, accompanying each blow with

guttural cries. The fray drew little by little toward the church, from

the roofs of two or three houses burst flames, a horde of women and

children escaped precipitately among the olives, seized with panic and

no longer with light in their eyes.

Then among the men, without the handicap of the women’s tears and

laments, the hand-to-hand struggle grew more ferocious. Beneath the

rust-coloured sky the earth was covered with corpses. Vituperations,

choked within the teeth of the slain, resounded, and ever above

the clamour continued the shout of the Radusani, “The candles! The

candles!”

But the entrance of the church was barred by an enormous door of oak

studded with nails. The Mascalicesi defended it from the blows and

hatchets. The Saint of silver, impassive and white, oscillated in

the thick of the fray, still sustained upon the shoulders of the four

Hercules, who, although bleeding from head to foot, refused to give up.

The supreme vow of the attackers was to place the idol on the altar of

the enemy.

Now while the Mascalicesi raged like prodigious lions on the stone

steps, Giacobbe disappeared suddenly and skirted the rear of the

edifice for an undefended opening by which he could penetrate the

sacristy. Finally he discovered an aperture at a slight distance from

the ground, clambered up, remained fixed there, held fast at the hips

by its narrowness, twisted and turned, until at length he succeeded in

forcing his long body through the opening.

The welcome aroma of incense was vanishing in the nocturnal frost of

the house of God. Groping in the dark, guided by the crashing of the

external blows, the man walked toward the door, stumbling over the

chain, and falling on his face and hands.

Radusanian hatchets already resounded upon the hardness of the oak

doors, when he began to force the lock with an iron, breathless,

suffocated by the violent palpitation of anxiety that sapped his

strength, with his eyes blurred by indistinct flashes, with his wounds

aching and emitting a tepid stream which flowed down over his skin.

“Saint Pantaleone! Saint Pantaleone!” shouted outside the hoarse voices

of those who felt the door yielding slowly, while they redoubled their

shouts and the blows of their hatchets. From the other side of the wood

resounded the heavy thud of bodies of those that had been murdered and

the sharp blow of a knife that had pinioned some one against the door,

nailed through the back. And it seemed to Giacobbe that the whole nave

throbbed with the beating of his wild heart.

After a final effort, the door swung open. The Radusani rushed in

headlong with an immense shout of victory, passing over the bodies of

the dead, dragging the Saint of silver to the altar.

An animated oscillation of reflections suddenly illuminated the

obscurity of the nave and made the gold of the candelabra glitter.

And in that glaring splendour, which now and again was intensified by

the burning of the adjacent houses, a second struggle took place. The

entangled bodies rolled upon the bricks, remained in a death grip,

balanced together here and there in their wrathful struggles, howled

and rolled beneath the benches, upon the steps of the chapels and

against the corners of the confessionals. In the symmetrical concave

of this house of God arose that icy sound of the steel that penetrates

the flesh or that grinds through the bones, that single broken groan

of a man wounded in a vital part, that rattle that the framework of the

skull gives forth when crushed with a blow, that roar of him who dreads

to die, that atrocious hilarity of him who has reached the point of

exulting in killing, all of these sounds echoed through this house of

God. And the calm odour of incense arose above the conflict.

The silver idol had not yet reached the glory of the altar, because

the hostile forces, encircling the altar, had prevented it. Giacobbe,

wounded in many places, struck with his scythe, never yielding a palm’s

breadth of the steps which he had been the first to conquer. There

remained but two to support the Saint. The enormous white head rolled

as if drunk over the wrathful pool of blood. The Mascalicesi raged.

Then Saint Pantaleone fell to the pavement, giving a sharp rattle that

stabbed the heart of Giacobbe deeper than any sword could have done.

As the ruddy mower darted over to lift it, a huge demon of a man with a

blow from a sickle stretched the enemy on his spine.

Twice he arose, and two other blows hurled him down again. The blood

inundated his entire face, breast and hands, while on his shoulders

and arms the bones, laid bare by deep wounds, shone out, but still

he persisted in recovering. Maddened by his fierce tenacity of life,

three, four, five ploughmen together struck him furiously in the

stomach, thus disgorging his entrails. The fanatic fell backwards,

struck his neck on the bust of the silver Saint, turned suddenly upon

his stomach with his face pressed against the metal and with his arms

extended before him and his legs contracted under him.

Thus was Saint Pantaleone lost.