"Vintagers!" cries the guide, "Come hither in haste; I bring you the great enemy of the gods. This man, on his way, destroys their statues and breaks down their altars; he is come to destroy the temple that is the glory and safety of your country. Rise and defend your gods!" The angry peasants come running towards the speaker. They surround the Saint and threaten him with the billhooks with which they are cutting the grapes. Serenely the aged bishop looks round upon them; his calmness disarms their anger. He is about to speak to them, but the red man knows well that his cause is lost, if once the missionary obtains a hearing. "Let us shut his impious mouth!" he cries to the vintagers. "His blasphemies will bring down upon us the wrath of heaven. Cry aloud, 'Death! death to the denouncer of the gods!' Away with him to the edge of the cliff, and hurl him down into the torrent!" Loud rise the angry shouts of the crowd, as the guide leads away the horse. Already they have reached the brink of the abyss. All is over; the saint must die. Hemmed about on all sides, Martin cries: "Come to my aid, O my God! make haste to help me!" He signs himself with the cross, strikes, with his whip, the rock and the flanks of his horse. The animal, with one mighty bound, clears the valley, and alights upon the opposite peak. Immediately, around the spot which he has just left, the earth trembles with an awful rending sound; a rock is torn from the flank of the hill, and plunges into the torrent beneath, bearing with it the false prophet, whose fall is marked by a flash of sulphurous lightning. The troubled waters boil and bubble, as they close over his body. At the sight of such wonders, the vintagers stand dumb with astonishment. Imprinted upon the granite rock they see the stroke of the rider's whip, and the hoof-print of his horse, from which, already, a stream of limpid water is flowing. The old man, calm and majestic as before, standing motionless upon the opposite peak, casts upon the peasants a compassionate glance. Terror-stricken, they acclaim him a divine being. Then, swarming down the mountain path to the valley, they climb the opposite peak, and again surround him. But, this time, they lie prostrate at his feet, and, with prayers for pardon, are about to adore him. "Rise," says the bishop; "I am but a mortal, a vintager of Christ; and your souls are the grapes I have come to gather in His name." He bids them sit down upon the hill side, and there, before the temple of the false gods, on the brink of the abyss into which Satan fell lightning-struck, he speaks to them of the emptiness of their past worship, and reveals the power, the beauty, and the tenderness of the God of the Gospel. The peasants, won at last from Paganism, descend to the temple, overthrow the images, and bury them in many a deep trench.[190] They would destroy the temple itself, but the pontiff restrains them.