Chapter 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.