Meanwhile the two parties had been pressing against the barrier for some minutes. Three struck from the cathedral clock; at the same time the air rings with the firing of the cannon, the signal so impatiently waited for. The obstacle dividing the two contingents is lifted, and the attack commences with a tenacity of which none but an eyewitness can conceive an approximate idea. All kinds of cries fall upon the ear. To the majority of the spectators the interest of the whole is heightened by the promptings of greed, of pride, and even of love. Each sign of success is greeted with deafening applause. The bravery of the combatants rises into frenzy, and the hand-to-hand struggle becomes a real battle with its fury and its alternating incidents. While the two troops assail each other with equal fury, each side flings long ropes with iron crooks attached to them into their adversaries’ ranks. The crook catches a leg, a man is down, and he is dragged away captive. It is simply a modification of the lasso practised by the Tartars on the Yedissen steppes: the running knot is thrown around the necks of the wild horses and they are checked in their stampede. The half-hour after three had struck, and the two contingents, pressed tightly against each other, seemed so many athletes who, unable to make their opponents budge, spend their strength in protracted efforts. Not an inch of ground had been gained; another ten minutes, and Victory herself, in her indecisive mood, would have claimed, as in days of old, her share of the glory. The two masses were so tightly wedged against each other as to make fighting impossible. They were simply like the waves of two meeting streams. In order to give further weight to the men, each leader ordered his band of musicians to advance, which movement again only equalised the power of resistance. On the two banks a mournful silence followed the joyous acclamations of the previous half-hour; the general deadlock left little or no hope of a decisive result. At last two champions of the hindmost ranks of Sainte-Marie hit upon a most audacious movement. In spite of the weight of their armour, they climb on to the shoulders of their comrades, and for a few moments remain erect on the flooring of brass and steel; in other words, the large helmets so closely serried as to leave little or no space between them. Advancing carefully from helmet to helmet, they reach the first rows of their own contingent. From the height of that living fortress, as from the height of a war-chariot, they shower tremendous blows with their clubs on the heads of their adversaries. The latter, though protected by the metal covering their skulls, finally reel and fall down. The breach is made, a thousand cries of victory from the side of Sainte-Marie are heard, and its mass advances. In a short time it has over-stepped its own line of demarcation, and the banner of St. Anthony is carried away by the two aerial champions.