But frenzy hung in the air; a red cloud of insanity was hovering over Nepenthe.  Although the volcano continued to behave in exemplary fashion, although the clergy had done their utmost to allay popular apprehensions, the native mind had not calmed down since the news concerning the Saint Elias fountain and those other portents had been disseminated.  The inhabitants were in a state of suppressed alarm and ready, at the least provocation, to burst out into some fiendish act of folly.  And the Russians, especially those latest arrivals, could not withdraw themselves from the subtle influence of the sound wind, the frank stimulation of a cloudless sky; it made them fell, after their gloomy forests and lowering horizons, like wild beasts that rush from darkened cages into some sunny arena.  Everyone lost his wits.  The appearance of a constable, far from restoring order, was the signal for an uproarious tumult; the fracas, as the French artist was heard to declare, promptly developed into a melee.  Nobody troubled about the merits of the case further than that it was a question of Apostles versus Gentiles.

The former were in sad minority.  But they constituted a serried rank of muscular Christians; they laid about them like those old monks of Alexandria.  All Russians are born fighters—­if not on the battlefield, then at least in the lanes and taverns of their natal villages.  The Little White Cows, wholly ignorant of the difference between their own law and that of Italy on questions of assault and battery, used their fists with such success that thirty natives were stretched out in almost a few seconds.  Their Faith was at stake; moreover, and as a matter of fact, they were enjoying themselves hugely.  The occasion reminded them of a Sunday at home.

Then numbers began to tell—­numbers and knives.  For your sun-scorched Nepenthean, when duly roused, confesses to an expert knowledge of anatomy; he can tell you, to the fraction of an inch, where the liver, the spleen, kidneys and various other coy organs of the human frame are located.  Blood, the blood of the Sacred Sixty-three, began to flow.  At that sight the women, as their manner is, set up a scream.

The Palace of Justice abutted on the market-place, and up to that moment His Worship Signor Malipizzo might have been lost to the world, so deeply immersed was he in threading the labyrinthine mazes of an exceptionally intricate affiliation case—­a warm document, after his own heart.  The sound of the scream suspended his labours.  Like a gouty parrot he hopped down from his seat of judgment, spat on the floor, limped to the window and took in the situation at a glance.  That is to say, he understood the cause of the disturbance as little as did any one else; it would have required a divine inspiration to guess that a box of wax vestas was at the bottom of the affair; but he knew enough, quite enough, more than enough, for the purpose at hand.  He knew,