Now while the Mascalicesi fought like lions, performing prodigies on the stone steps, Giacobbe suddenly disappeared around the corner of the building, seeking an undefended opening through which to enter the sacristy.  And beholding a narrow window not far from the ground, he climbed up to it, wedged himself into its embrasure, doubled up his long body, and succeeded in crawling through.  The cordial aroma of incense floated in the solitude of God’s house.  Feeling his way in the dark, guided by the roar of the fight outside, he crept towards the door, stumbling against chairs and bruising his face and hands.

The furious thunder of the Radusan axes was echoing from the tough oak, when he began to force the lock with an iron bar, panting, suffocated by a violent agonizing palpitation which diminished his strength, blind, giddy, stiffened by the pain of his wounds, and dripping with tepid blood.

“San Pantaleone!  San Pantaleone!” bellowed the hoarse voices of his comrades outside, redoubling their blows as they felt the door slowly yield.  Through the wood came to his ears the heavy thump of falling bodies, the quick thud of knife-thrusts nailing some one through the back.  And a grand sentiment, like the divine uplift of the soul of a hero saving his country, flamed up then in that bestial beggar’s heart.

V.

By a final effort the door was flung open.  The Radusani rushed in, with an immense howl of victory, across the bodies of the dead, to carry the silver saint to the altar.  A vivid quivering light was reflected suddenly into the obscure nave, making the golden candlesticks shine, and the organ-pipes above.  And in that yellow glow, which now came from the burning houses and now disappeared again, a second battle was fought.  Bodies grappled together and rolled over the brick floor, never to rise, but to bound hither and thither in the contortions of rage, to strike the benches, and die under them, or on the chapel steps, or against the taper-spikes about the confessionals.  Under the peaceful vault of God’s house the chilling sound of iron penetrating men’s flesh or sliding along their bones, the single broken groan of men struck in a vital spot, the crushing of skulls, the roar of victims unwilling to die, the atrocious hilarity of those who had succeeded in killing an enemy,—­all this re-echoed distinctly.  And a sweet, faint odor of incense floated above the strife.

The silver idol had not, however, reached the altar in triumph, for a hostile circle stood between.  Giacobbe fought with his scythe, and, though wounded in several places, did not yield a hand’s breadth of the stair which he had been the first to gain.  Only two men were left to hold up the saint, whose enormous white head heaved and reeled grotesquely like a drunken mask.  The men of Mascalico were growing furious.