The outcries of the assembled household, together with the clank of heavy boots, the clash of weapons, the snapping of pistols, the groans and cries of the wounded, and the imprecations of the troopers, and, added to this, my own voice calling fruitlessly on the assailants to fall back, to desist, made the lofty chamber seem a very pandemonium. Sometimes a pistol-shot filled the place with smoke: one ill-directed ball shattered the chandelier, scattering the wax-lights, and involving us in comparative darkness; after which, I believe, we all laid about us at random. Another ball stretched on the floor the venerable Andronicus, who had just come to our assistance, and was cutting away among the buskinned shins of the enemy, using his sharp couteau like a scythe. For a time I merely used my sabre in defending Luigi and the unhappy girl, who hung insensible upon him; but finding that our numerous antagonists were repeatedly having recourse to fire-arms, and that our safety was, consequently, more endangered, I slashed a few adroitly across the fingers, cleft a slice from the buffalo-head of a sbirro, and might have performed many more exploits, had not Castelermo at that moment burst in amongst us, holding a lamp aloft in one hand, and his sword in the other. "Basta! on peril of your lives, hold all your hands, or, by San Ermo, I will drive my sword through the body of the first who strikes!" cried this formidable cavalier, with the voice of a stentor. "Croce di Malta! has hell broken loose, or are ye mad? What! Italians fighting like wild wolves, while so many Frenchmen are yet on this side of the Alps? Sheath your sword, Santugo—back Signor Claude: shame upon you all!" On hearing this determined threat, and beholding the Maltese cross, the troopers of the Masse shrank back respectfully: but the furious visconte, whom the protracted conflict, the helpless state of Francesca, and a wound he had received, had worked up into a perfect frenzy, yet defied them once more to the encounter; and fear of abandoning his charge, even for a moment, alone restrained him from rushing upon them. "Anathema! a curse upon ye, cowards!" he exclaimed; "away from my house, or abide the consequences! Corpo di Caio Mario! O that the thrice villainous Bishop of Cosenza, or his contemptible minion di Bivona were here, to receive at my hands the reward of all this outrage!" "I am here, excellency," cried the tough old barone, bursting through the throng, and confronting the fiery Santugo.