With vociferation and blows the whole pulled here and there, the original cause of the falling out buried now in a host of new causes.  Ian, caught in an eddy, turned to make way out of it.  A peasant woman, there with a group from some rock village, received a chance buffet, so heavy that she cried out, staggered, then, pushed against in the melee, fell upon the earth.  The raven crew threatened trampling. “Jesu Maria!” she cried, and tried to raise herself, but could not.  Ian, very near her, took a step farther in and, stooping, lifted her.  But now the ravens chose to fall foul of him.  The woman was presently gone, and her peasant fellows....  He was beating off a drunken Comus crew, with some of active ill-will.  His dress was rich—­he was not Roman, evidently—­the surge had foamed and dragged across from the bonfire and the open place to the dark mouth of a poor street.  Many a thing besides light-hearted gaieties happened in carnival season.

He became aware that a friendly person had come up, was with him beating off raven, gorgon, and satyr.  He saw that this person was very big, and caught an old, oft-noted trick in the swing of his arm.  To-night, in carnival time, when there was trouble, it seemed quite natural and with a touch of home that Old Steadfast should loom forth.

A clang of music, shouting, and an oncoming array of lights helped to daunt band of ravens and drunken masks.  A procession of fishermen with nets and monsters of the sea approached, went by.  The attackers merged in the throng that attended or followed, went away with innocent shouts and songs.  A second push followed the first, a great crowd of masks and spectators bound for a piazza through which was to pass one of the final large pageants.  This wave carried with it Ian and Alexander.  On such a night, where every sea was tumult, one indication, one propelling touch, was as good as another.  The two went on in company.  Alexander was not masked.  Ian was, but that did not to-night hide him from the other.  They came into the flaringly lighted place.  Around stood old ruins, piers, broken arches and columns, and among these modern houses.  For the better viewing of the spectacle banks of seats had been built, tier upon tier rising high, propped against what had been ancient bath or temple.  The crowd surged to these, filling every stretch and cranny not yet seized upon.  There issued that the tiers were packed; dark, curving, mounting rows where foot touched shoulder.  The piazza turned amphitheater.

Still, in this carnival night, Ian and Alexander found themselves together.  They were sitting side by side, a third of the way between pavement and the topmost row.  They sat still, broodingly, in a cloud of things rememberable, no distinct images, but all their common past, good and bad, and the progress from one to the other, making as it were one chord, or a mist of one color.  They did not reason about this momentary oneness, but took it as it came.  It was carnival season.