University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

The only object of the mob had been obtained. In all their rage they had
never contemplated an assault upon the palace of their tyrant. This may have
been the desire of some, but the great mass, as yet, were in possession of too few
thoughts, to dream that they had other rights than those of service, and other
hopes than those of animal indulgence in this life, and vague ideas (scarcely less
animal in their promise,) of salvation in the next. Religious frenzy had drawn
them forward, and having the sacred remains in their possession, for which they
had ventured life, and the touch of which was to give them life eternal, they
were satisfied with their achievement. The corpse was lifted from the ground; and
when it appeared in the arms of those who had the felicity first to lay hands upon
it, conspicuous to the eyes of all, and over the heads of the mob, their shrieks of
fury were changed to shouts of congratulation. From hand to hand the sacred
remains were borne aloft by the populace, its course altered momently in compliance
with the will of the boldest or the pressure of the strongest handed. Now it
was hurried in one quarter, now in another; and in their enthusiasm, grasping it
from every direction, it was in great danger of being torn in pieces. Some leaped
above the heads of the mass, pitching forward recklessly in their efforts to touch at
least the garment which it wore. Mothers lifted up their infants as the carcass
was hurried by, that the unconscious babes might obtain the valuable pressure for
which they could make no effort; and in the madness of the moment, fierce men
strove with one another, even to blows, for that contact with the object of their common
veneration from which so much was hoped.

But the Gallician, Toro, beheld their fanaticism with scorn. He had been
busy, from the moment of the flight of the soldiers, in the effort to extricate his
sister from the press of the crowd. To this object he had devoted all his strength;
but he had striven idly. The impetuous torrent bore him from side to side, with
his precious burden, until his strength was almost exhausted. In vain did he seek
to command attention by his voice. There were none to listen. None gave heed
to any object except the poor remains of a man, a victim to madness like their own,
whom, in their folly, they had sanctified.

“Accursed fools!” exclaimed the Gallicean; “they will waste time with their
plaything, until the guards collect and crush them.”

His speech was uttered sufficiently loud for all to hear, who stood around him.
Indeed, he addressed words to the same effect to many. But groans of devotion
and shrieks of delight, drowned his voice and defined his arguments; and panting
and striving, at least to preserve his position, and protect Toly against their pressure,
he was compelled to abide the progress of events, and wait patiently until
their madness should have found its termination in their general physical exhaustion.
Meanwhile, the crowd pressed to and fro upon him, and he was compelled
to resort with every moment to stern words and sharp strokes, to secure his place.
The terrors of his sister were duly increased as she beheld the increasing violence
of her brother. He could scarce forbear the use of his curtal-axe, when some
zealot, more furious or less heedful than the rest, encroached upon the little space
which he maintained as a sort of boundary in front of him; and to the howling
of this or that devotee, he had bitter words and fierce execrations. Toly dreaded
lest the harsh language of her brother should provoke retort, and probably violence;
but he had no such fear.

“Nay, they do not hear me,” he would reply to her exhortations; “they are too
mad to hear—they are deaf and stupid; and even if they did hear, I care not. A
set of cowards—the base scum; if they had but the proper spirit, we should have
torn down these walls and left not one stone of the palace upon another. The
place was ours—had they but gone forward, it would have been done, and we
should have had our revenge. Now, it is hopeless. They will waste all their
strength upon the body, or upon one another, and by noon they will fly like hares
from the dog, if they see but a single one of the soldiers, whom they have just
now driven. Ay, roar fool!” he exclaimed, as one ragged wretch rushed by him,
with a wild shout, hurrying toward the group over whose heads at that moment
the corpse of Romano was in progress—“roar and howl—'t is all that you are fit
for. The prick of a spear-head, and the stripes of a green thong, are your proper
counsellors. They only keep you right, and send you forward, and keep your
brute madness in check!”

“Oh, Toro! do not speak thus, or speak not so loud,” said Toly. “If they hear
they will strike—they will hurt you.”

“Let them try—the curs—let them try!” and the Gallician waved his axe, while,
as if to prove his scorn, he thrust forth his foot as one of the group rushed by
him, and the fellow tumbled over the obstruction and went forward at full length
to the ground. The fierce laugh of the Gallician followed his fall, and afforded
the injured man but an equivocal atonement for the wanton indignity which he
had suffered; but, when he rose and looked upon the offender, he saw enough in
his countenance to satisfy him that he was not the sort of man whom he could
trifle with. Hurrying on, therefore, the fellow joined the crowd—while Toro, the
offender, turning to his sister, with a laugh, exclaimed:

“You see, Toly, what spiritless wretches these are—how worthless. I only
wonder that they pressed the soldiers as they did. Indeed, they never would have
done so of themselves. The pressure came from those without. They were in no
danger, and they knew it; and they were not unwilling to have their sport at the
expense of those within. The fiends light on them; but I fear that they will make
us suffer yet. I would, that you were out, Toly. Why did you follow me?”

The girl pressed his arm, but said nothing. At that moment a dreadful shout
rang through the crowd.

“Raise me, Toro, and I can see, and tell you,” said Toly to her brother, while
he was vainly striving, on tip-toe, to look over the waving, rolling and reeling
heads of the dense mass before him. He did so, and the cry of the girl was immediate.

“It is a woman, Toro!” she exclaimed. “They have raised her up—fie—fie—
her neck is bare, and yet she does not heed it. She scrambles among the people—
they tear her clothes—they will kill her, Toro—they pull her about so. No—they
seem to carry her forward. How she screams and laughs. Ah! I see—I see”—

“What, Toly?”

“The body of the holy man, brother. It is that which she strives at. She
clambers over their heads, I know not how; and yet they pull her back—some pull
her back—some push her forward. Hark! hear how she screams. She has nearly
reached the body. Now, now—she grasps—she siezes it by one arm. She falls
—they have let her down—no! they lift her again, and oh! Toro, how they have
torn her clothes. Take me down, brother, I must not look—I would not see It
is too ugly.”

Toro gently let the maiden down, while, mounting upon a small rock, he strove
to behold the scene which she had witnessed and in part described. The woman

of whom his sister had spoken, was still in sight—a virago, evidently, of immense
strength and size. By dint of violent exertions, she had forced her way among the
men; now on equal terms struggling with them upon the ground, and now rising
above their heads, sometimes with their help, but most frequently in defiance of their
opposition. She had at length succeeded in grasping one arm of the sainted Romano.
To this she clung, while those in possession of the body tugged a different
way. At length she fell to the ground, but this did not have the effect of making
her relax her hold. On the contrary, it not only gave to her increased powers for
retaining it, but enabled others around her to seize upon the same unconscious limb,
and to unite their strength with hers in opposition to the equally determined fanatics
who had possession of the body. The tide of numbers swayed to and fro, under
this conflict. Shouts and screams filled the air from both parties, as they severally
gained or lost an advantage in the strife. Almost naked to the waist, the fierce woman
still struggled and fought, with all the vigor and more than the madness of the men
around her. The fury of a tigress seemed to fill her bosom, and now she raved and
now she swore, while, in her efforts, she did not scruple to seize, even with her
teeth, the arm of one of those who drew in the same direction upon the lifeless and
yielding limb. Piece by piece the sleeve that covered it was torn away, and the
withered and yellow flesh was left in her tenacious grasp. She held on to her
prize as if life and immortality were hers in consequence. Nor was the hold of those
in possession of the body less unyielding. They strove with redoubled efforts to
bear away their relic entire. Wherever a hand could secure a hold, it was taken;
and those who could not, grasped firmly upon the more fortunate arms which did.
At length the joints yielded—they twisted the fibres which secured the shoulders—
then tugging with diligent ferocity on both sides, they wrenched the arm from the
socket, and the flesh and fibres were separated and torn in fragments, like decayed and
worthless rags. A wild shout of delirious triumph rent the air, and in the same
moment the ragged and bleeding limb was seen waving in the eyes of thousands,
above their heads, in the hands of the fierce and triumphant virago. She was alone
in the possession of the prize. The men who had joined with her in the struggle
had relaxed and withdrawn their grasp, when the limb separated. A feeling of natural
horror ran through every bosom, even among those who had been most active
in the strife. But she suffered from no such sentiments. Her shrieks were preëminent
above the clamors of the crowd, and the Gallician shuddered as he beheld her,
armed with the yellow, meagre, yet blood-dripping limb, forcing a passage through
the crowd by the sheer force of that terror which its approach seemed to inspire.
His feelings of disgust would not permit him to look longer, and with a shiver he
descended from his perch, and clasped the frail form of the young girl beside him to
his bosom, with an increased apprehension, which the spectacle he had witnessed
was well calculated to occasion.

“Oh, Toly! what would I not give if you were free from this press!” he exclaimed,
as he put his arm fondly about her waist.

“Do try, Toro, and get me out. Our poor mother will fear that harm has come
to both of us, unless we go to her directly.”

Toro looked about him with many anxious doubts.

“Harm will come to us,” he muttered to himself, “unless we can get out now.
We have little time left us.”

“What say you, Toro?”

“Nothing, Toly—only follow me. That mad woman has left an opening, and
if we could only reach it, we should be safe. Follow me closely. Grasp my doublet
thus, and keep close. I will get you out, if the strength of a man may do it.”

He placed the skirt of his doublet in her hand, and resolutely pushing among the
crowd, he led the way, and Toly, trembling at every movement, clung close, and
strove to follow him through the opening which, by sheer resolve of temper and
strength of arm, her brother sought to make.