Clang! clang! The sound of the bells now became a mad jangle, and the steeple fairly rocked to their swinging. Everywhere the people were pouring out of their houses in terror and panic, not knowing whither to turn for safety. Those who were below in the church were now tearing all the gold and silver ornamentation from the altar, and the communion plate was scattered on the floor of the chancel. Vainly the frightened priests strove to stay the work of destruction and violation; the seamen were deaf to all entreaty, and cut and tore the silken hangings from the altar, wrapping the costly fabric over their own tarry and soiled clothing. Every man plundered for himself only, and would allow none to rob him of his intended spoil. Above the altar stood a life-sized figure of the Blessed Virgin Mother, exquisitely modelled in solid gold, and clothed in rich fabric that was adorned with precious stones innumerable. The sailors saw it, and leaped one after another upon the altar, drawing their swords and hacking off the gems, whilst the priests covered their eyes with horror at the desecration and sacrilege. The eyes of the figure consisted of two magnificent sapphires of great size, and, being unable to reach these with their swords, the sailors put their weapons behind and under the image, and with a few violent wrenches it came crashing to the ground with a thunderous noise. As it fell, from above them in the belfry came a most awful, piercing, and agonising scream of anguish. It rose in one shrill cry above every other sound, and echoed, long-drawn out and ghastly, among the dim arches of the roof high above them. The fearful cry rose and fell, while all below stood still, frozen into silence by the utter horror of the sound. It was as the voice of a lost soul in the most dreadful torment. As suddenly as it had arisen it ceased, and it was now noticed that the tenor bell was no longer clanging its deep mellow voice above them in the steeple. An old priest stepped out from among his brethren. "Cease, ye wicked men!" cried he in excellent English. "Cease, ye heretics and sacrilegious dogs, ere worse befall ye! That awful shriek was the despairing cry of a soul torn from its body in awful torment. Take warning, ye, from that man's dreadful fate; for a man it was, although ye might have deemed the voice that of a devil! "I can tell ye his doom. He was caught up by the whirling ropes of the bells which ye have rung to your own confusion, and his body has been torn to pieces in the pipe through which the bell-rope runs. Take warning, I say, and leave this sacred place in peace!" He spoke no more, for one of the officers, fearing the effect his words might have on the superstitious seamen, seized him by the shoulders and hustled him down the long aisle of the building and through the door into the street.