Bernard at the expense of all other brutes! Reptile!--dost not dread the
arm of an honest man, when raised against thee in just anger?"
"Friends--Vevaisans--honorable citizens!" gasped the pilgrim, as the gripe
of Maso permitted breath. "I am Conrad, a poor, miserable, repentant
pilgrim--Will ye see me murdered for a brute?"
Such a contest could not continue long in such a place. At first the
pressure of the curious, and the great density of the crowd, rather
favored the attack of the mariner; but in the end they proved his enemies
by preventing the possibility of escaping from those who were especially
charged with the care of the public peace. Luckily for Conrad, for passion
had fairly blinded Maso to the consequences of his fury, the halberdiers
soon forced their way into the centre of the living mass, and they
succeeded in seasonably rescuing him from the deadly gripe of his
assailant. Il Maledetto trembled with the reaction of this hot sally, the
moment his gripe was forcibly released, and he would have disappeared as
soon as possible, had it been the pleasure of those into whose hands he
had fallen to permit so politic a step.
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