If I were to live a thousand years never should I forget the horror of Friar Johannes, who had cleared a way for himself with his long staff, and was placing his foot on the last step when he discovered, just before the bottom of the staircase, Beppo seated calmly on his tail, his chain tightened, his eye expressive of joy, ready to snap him up first!

None can tell the muscular power which Maitre Johannes was obliged to put forth to stem the force that was driving him in from behind.  Convulsively grasping the banister with both hands, his broad shoulders formed a mighty buttress against the pressing flood.  Like Atlas, I do believe he would have borne the earth upon his back to save his precious skin.

In the midst of this confusion and tumult, and when there seemed no way to avert the threatening catastrophe, suddenly the door of the cattle-shed opened violently, and the redoubtable Horni, Maitre Sebaldus’s magnificent bull, rushed into the arena, his massive dewlap shaking loosely like an apron, his tail extended straight, his mouth and nostrils white with fleecy foam.

It was an inspiration of the master’s.  He had resolved to risk his bull to save human life.  At the same moment the fat, round, rosy face of our landlord appeared through the skylight of the stable, crying to the crowd not to be alarmed, for that he would open the inner door which abuts into the old synagogue, and let out the crowd by the Jews’ street, which was done in two or three minutes, to the immense relief and comfort of the public.

But now listen to the end of my story.

Scarcely had the bear caught sight of the bull when he made an ugly rush upon this new adversary with so terrible a shock that the chain burst.  The bull retired, facing his foe, to a corner of the court near the pigeon-cote, and there, head well down between his short legs and horns presented, he awaited the shock of war.

The bear made several feints, slipping along by the wall from right to left; but the bull, with his forehead almost touching the ground, followed the enemy’s movements with marvellous coolness.

In five minutes the galleries had been cleared; the noise of the crowd taking refuge down the Jews’ street was becoming more remote, and this manoeuvring of the two huge brutes seemed as if they were meditating a drawn battle, when suddenly the bull, losing patience, threw himself upon the bear with the whole momentum of his monstrous bulk.  The unhappy brute, pressed so closely, took refuge under the wood-shed, but the head and horns of his foe pursued him thither, and there no doubt he nailed his adversary to the wall, for although I could only see the bull’s hind-quarters, I could hear a dreadful shriek, followed by a crunching of bones, and presently a pool of blood was flowing over the pavement.