The effect of this was instantaneous. Pèp, in the denseness of his dull brain, saw something like a spark of light, a luminous divination, and he extended his hands imperatively, while at the same instant he arose.
"Enough! Enough!"
But it was too late; a form interposed between himself and the candle light; it was Febrer, who had leaped forward.
He grasped the drum from the singer's knees and hurled it at his head with such force that the parchment gave way and the frame fitted itself down over the bleeding forehead like a shapeless cap.
The youths sprang impulsively from their seats, their hands reaching into their girdles. Margalida, screaming, took refuge at her mother's side, and the Little Chaplain felt that the time had come to draw his knife. His father, with the authority of his years, shouted:
"Outside! Outside!"
They all obeyed, and went out into the fields in front of the farmhouse. Febrer went also, in spite of the resistance of Pèp.
The young men seemed to be divided among themselves, and were carrying on a heated discussion. Some were protesting. The idea of striking the poor Minstrel, an unfortunate sick boy who could not defend himself! Others shook their heads. They had been expecting it. A man could not be insulted gratuitously without something happening. They had opposed the singing; they believed that when a man had something to say to another man he should say it face to face.
In the heat of their contrary opinions and in their jealous rivalry they were about to resort to blows when their attention was distracted by the Minstrel. He had removed the drum from his head and was wiping the blood from his forehead, weeping with the fury of a weak man who longs to wreak direct vengeance, and yet realizes himself a slave to his impotence.
"I'll settle with him!" he cried. Suddenly stooping to pick up stones in the darkness, he began to throw them at Febrer, each time receding a few steps as if to defend himself against a new aggression. The stones, flung by his forceless arms, fell into the shadows or rebounded against the porch.