The men did not remain in the background. Fired with martial fury, they drove their swords through their enemies' bodies, or brained them with their arquebuses, or else, quickly reloading their guns, brought them down from a distance.[642] Being skilful marksmen, they picked out their victims; forty nobles, most of them Knights of the Spoon,[643] bit the dust; and the priests paid a large tribute to death. The fanatical anger of the clergy, who marched courageously to battle, was met by the avenging anger of the Swiss, who were irritated at seeing men of peace on the field of strife. Wildermuth had pointed out 'the false priests' to his men. 'There they are now; we must sacrifice them as did Elijah of old.' The curés, who had not expected such a resistance, found themselves cut down by those terrible Helvetians, to whom two days of suffering and the perfidy of their enemies gave a sort of transport. An excited imagination could alone, perhaps, secure victory to the Swiss. One of them in particular seemed like the angel of death. The indignation he felt at seeing the servants of God wielding the sword, carried him away, and twenty of them fell beneath his blows—a terrible fulfilment of the words of Christ to Peter: _They that take the sword shall perish with the sword_. A hundred of these ministers of peace, turned ministers of war, remained dead or wounded on the field.[644] The noise was frightful, and was heard a long way off. 'During the battle,' says Froment, 'there was fierce lightning in the air and loud thunder.' Was there a storm or are these words only figurative? Perhaps persons at a distance took the flashes of the guns and the noise of the battle for thunder and lightning. [Sidenote: SONG OF THE BERNESE SOLDIER.]