It seemed as though Marzio’s wish had been accomplished without his agency.  A deadly livid colour overspread the priest’s refined features, and as they lifted him his limp limbs hung down as though the vitality would never return to them—­all except the left arm, which was turned stiffly out and seemed to refuse to hang down with the rest.  It was dislocated at the shoulder.

A scene of indescribable confusion followed, in which Gianbattista alone seemed to maintain some semblance of coolness.  The rest all spoke and cried at once.  Maria Luisa and Lucia knelt beside the body where they had laid it on the steps of the high altar, crying aloud, kissing the white hands and beating their breasts, praying, sobbing, and calling upon Paolo to speak to them, all in a breath.

“He is dead as a stone,” said one of the workmen in a low voice.

“Eh!  He is in Paradise,” said another, kneeling at the priest’s feet and rubbing them.

“Take him to the hospital, Sor Tista—­”

“Better take him home—­”

“I will run and call Sor Marzio—­”

“There is an apothecary in the next street.”

“A doctor is better—­apothecaries are all murderers.”

Gianbattista, very pale, but collected and steady, pushed the men gently away from the body.

“Cari miei, my dear fellows,” he said, “he may be alive.  One of you run and get a carriage to the side door of the sacristy.  The rest of you put the things together and be careful to leave nothing where it can fall.  We will take him to Sor Marzio’s house and get the best doctor.”

“There is not even a drop of holy water in the basins,” moaned Maria Luisa.

“He will go to Heaven without holy water,” sobbed Lucia.  “Oh, how good he was—­”

Gianbattista kneeled down in his turn and tried to find the pulse in the poor limp wrist.  Then he listened for the heart.  He fancied he could hear a faint flutter in the breast.  He looked up and a little colour came to his pale face.

“I think he is alive,” he said to the two women, and then bent down again and listened.  “Yes,” he continued joyfully.  “The heart beats.  Gently—­help me to carry him to the sacristy; get his hat one of you.  So—­carefully—­do not twist that arm.  I think I see colour in his cheeks—­”

With four other men Gianbattista raised the body and bore it carefully to the sacristy.  The cab was already at the door, and in a few minutes poor Don Paolo was placed in it.  The hood was raised, and Maria Luisa got in and sat supporting the drooping head upon her broad bosom.  Lucia took the little seat in front, and Gianbattista mounted to the box, after directing the four men to follow in a second cab as fast as they could, to help to carry the priest upstairs.  He sent another in search of a surgeon.

“Do not tell Sor Marzio—­do not go to the workshop,” he said in a last injunction.  He knew that Marzio would be of no use in such an emergency, and he hoped that Don Paolo might be pronounced out of danger before the chiseller knew anything of the accident.