VI

Suddenly from the little church of San Gervaso the bells rang out, and the whole company turned and involuntarily paused in their work, for in the morning stillness the sound seemed irate and menacing.

'Lord have mercy on our souls!' murmured Grillo, putting his hand to his head with a despairing gesture. 'Here is Don Faustino, and a multitude with him! They have seen us! Look how they beat their hands and beckon. See, they rush upon us! I am a lost man!'

At this moment arrived those friends of Messer Cipriano's, who had intended to have been present for the excavation, but who had lost their way. Boltraffio threw a glance at them, and, absorbed though he still was in the new-found goddess, his attention was caught on the instant by one of the newcomers. This personage was already inspecting the Venus, with a cold, imperturbable composure, so different from Giovanni's personal agitation, that the lad could not but be struck with astonishment. He continued to gaze at the statue, but his consciousness now was entirely for the man by his side.

'Hearken!' said Messer Cipriano after a few moments' thought, 'the villa is not two paces distant, and the doors are strong enough for a siege.'

'Yea, verily,' cried Grillo; 'courage, brothers, we shall save her!' He felt jealous for the image which had cost him so much, and directing the operations himself, he contrived to get it safely transported across the Humid Hollow. Then the statue was borne into the house; but scarcely had it crossed the threshold, when on the hill-top appeared the threatening figure, inflamed countenance and brandished arms of Don Faustino.

The lower part of the villa was at present uninhabited, and its great hall was used as a storehouse for agricultural implements and great jars of olive-oil: in one corner was a mountain of golden straw. Upon this straw, a humble, rustic bed, Aphrodite was delicately laid to rest. But this was no sooner accomplished and the doors barred than the latter were assailed by blows, by shouts, and by curses loud and deep.

'Open! Open!' cried the cracked voice of Don Faustino; 'in the name of the true and living God, I bid you open!'

Messer Cipriano mounted the stone inner staircase and surveyed the crowd from a grated window above the hall. Seeing that the assailants were few, he entered into parley, his face wearing his customary smile. But the priest put his fingers in his ears, and vociferously demanded the idol—so he named it—which had been dug out of the ground.

The Master of the Calimala now had recourse to a ruse de guerre.

'Beware,' he said calmly; 'I have summoned the captain of the town guard, and in two hours the horsemen will be on you. I allow none to enter my house by force.'

'Break down the door,' cried the priest. 'God is with us. Fear nothing! Assault!' And snatching an axe from a gentle-faced old peasant beside him, he battered upon the great door with all his strength.

'Don Faustino! Don Faustino!' cried the old man, feebly restraining the furious ecclesiastic, 'we are poor folk, and we do not dig up money in our fields. This will be our ruin; they will have us to prison!'

The mention of the redoubtable town guard had struck terror into the rabble; and many were already deserting.

'If it had been on the church-ground, 'twere another matter,' muttered some of them.

'The confines established by law——'

'The law? A spider's web, set to catch flies, not hornets. The law does not exist for great folk.'

'True for you. And every man is master on his own land.'

All this time Giovanni was gazing at the rescued Venus.

The sunshine pouring through a side window seemed waking the tender body to warmth and softness after its long imprisonment in the gloom and the chill of the vault; the golden straw surrounding it shone like an aureole.

Giovanni once more noted the stranger. He was on his knees beside the statue, measuring it with his compasses, his square, and a half-circle made of copper; on his face was the same imperturbable calm; in his cold, blue eyes the same piercing curiosity.

'What is he doing? Who is he?' Giovanni asked himself, almost awestruck, as he watched the quick, bold fingers exploring the limbs of the goddess, the secrets of her beauty, all the subtleties of the marble, too delicate for the apprehension of the eye.

At the gate of the villa the priest was still heard yelling at the melting crowd.

'Stay, rascals! Sellers of Christ! fearful of the town guard, but careless of Antichrist! Ipse vero Antichristus opes malorum effodiet et exponet, as said the great preacher St. Anselm of Canterbury. Effodiet, hear you? Antichrist shall dig up the old idols from the earth and again bring them forth to the world.'

But none heeded him.

'He is a pestilent fellow, this Don Faustino of ours!' said the prudent miller shaking his head; 'his life hangs by a thread, yet see how he storms. For my part, I rejoice they have found the treasure.'

'They say the image is of silver.'

'Silver? Nay, I saw it myself, and 'tis of marble; naked and shameless.'

'Lord forgive us! Are we to soil our hands for such rubbish as that?'

'Whither art going, Zacchello?'

'To the field; to my work.'

'God go with you! And I'll to the vineyard.'

At this all the fury of the priest was let loose on his parishioners.

'Infidel dogs, abortions of Cain! would you abandon your pastor? Know ye not, spawn of Satan, that did I not pray for you day and night, and beat my breast with weeping and fasting, your whole sinful village would long ere this have been sunk into the earth? But it is ended! I leave you, shaking off the dust from my feet. Cursed be the land! Cursed the corn and the water and the flocks; and your sons and your sons' sons. I am your father, your shepherd no more. I renounce you! Anathema!'