For a few moments Fra Angelo and Michel, who were fighting in the front rank, hand-to-hand with the _campieri_, were in grave danger. Magnani was even farther to the front; he tried to turn aside all the blows aimed at Michel, for they had no time to reload their weapons and were fighting with swords and knives, and the noble-hearted Magnani sought to make his body a rampart to protect Agatha's son. Suddenly Michel, who was constantly pushing him aside and begging him to think of his own safety, missed him from his side. Michel thereupon attacked the enemy fiercely. The first horror of bloodshed having passed away, he was urged onward by a strange and terrifying nervous excitement. He was not wounded. Fra Angelo, who had a superstitious faith in the grandeur of the young prince's destiny, had prophesied that he would not be. But if he had been wounded twenty times over, he would not have been conscious of it, his vital forces were so concentrated in his brain. He was, as it were, intoxicated by danger, and excited to frenzy by the battle. It was a ghastly but intense pleasure; the blood of Castro-Reale awoke and began to boil fiercely in the veins of the lion's whelp. When the victory was won, and they were able to join forces with Malacarne, walking over dead bodies, it seemed to Michel that the contest had been too short and too easily decided. And yet it had been so desperate that almost every man among the victors was more or less severely wounded. The _campieri_ had sold their lives dearly, and if Malacarne had not recovered his energy when he saw that the Piccinino was reviving and was able to fight, Fra Angelo's band would have been forced back into the yawning ravine behind them. The dull gray dawn was beginning to whiten the misty peaks on the horizon when the assailants entered the conquered fortress. They had to pass through it in order to retire into the mountains unseen by the inhabitants of the village, who had left their horses and were timidly climbing their steep rocky street to ascertain the result of the engagement. Their anxious eyes could hardly distinguish the moving mass of the combatants, lighted only by the flashing of their fire-arms. While they were fighting hand-to-hand the pale-faced citizens of Sperlinga stood frozen with terror, listening to the shouts and imprecations of that incomprehensible struggle. They had no inclination to assist the garrison, and most of them longed for the success of the brigands. But the dread of reprisals restrained them from going to their aid. At daybreak they could be seen, almost naked, standing in groups here and there like trembling ghosts, manifesting an ill-defined purpose to go to the assistance of the victors.