Just at that moment, when the Nuncio and Ugarte, preceded by boys bearing censers and tapers, were entering, just as the choir struck up, and while a solemn murmur pervaded the vast church, for the crescent moon beneath the feet of the Madonna suddenly flashed forth a silvery splendour, unseen by all, save Don Perez, who was retiring, Pedro threw a lighted cigar match among the draperies of the altar, and in a moment the light festoons and muslin clouds, the whole figure of the Madonna, and the altar, which was seventy feet in height, became a roaring pyramid of fire.
A wild cry from the kneeling congregation burst over the whole church, and the door instantly became blocked by fugitives, who fell, wedged over each other in a hopeless pile, the upper stifling those below, while the spread of the conflagration exceeded in its speed the fear of those who would have fled.
An effect was produced beyond what Pedro had anticipated. He hoped for a mere alarm, he produced a catastrophe beyond all parallel in ancient or modern times.
Maddened, however, by double terror, he was among the first who sought for safety. Trampling women and children under foot and endued with twice his natural strength and activity by sheer desperation, he contrived to reach the sill of a window, by climbing over a tomb, and dashing the lozenged frame to pieces, was preparing to throw himself headlong out, when his foot was seized from below.
He uttered an angry imprecation and looked down.
Donna Ignez and little Donna Paula both clung to him in the wildest terror.
"Save us, Don Pedro—save us, for the love of God!" cried they in despair, for the whole of that fated church was now covered with sheets of flame, its twenty thousand camphine lamps, as their cords and festoons gave way, adding to the terror by descending like a rain of fire, and setting aflame the hair and light summer dresses of those below—that struggling mass of horror-stricken people, who were all hopelessly wreathed and wedged together.
It was fire—fire—fire everywhere—above, below, around—a seething mass of flaming figures, wavering and scorching, a rising and descending sea of red flame, for the church of God had now become a living hell!
"Save me! save me!" gasped Ignez, choking in the heat, as her light summer dress caught fire.
"No use to save her now from fire, as I did from water. Perez, you don't require to swim here," cried the barbarian, as he thrust the shrieking girl and little Paula among the flames with his foot, and, springing into the street without, fled from Santiago.