“French dogs!”
“Bullock-feet!”
“Snatch their pikes from them!”
“Cut the cords and make them run for their prisoners. They’ll run as fast as geese—don’t you see they’re web-footed?” These were the cries which the soldiers vaguely understood to be jeers, and probably threats. But everyone seemed disposed to give invitations of this spirited kind rather than to act upon them.
“Santiddio! here’s a sight!” said the dyer, as soon as he had divined the meaning of the advancing tumult, “and the fools do nothing but hoot. Come along!” he added, snatching his axe from his belt, and running to join the crowd, followed by the butcher and all the rest of his companions, except Goro, who hastily retreated up a narrow passage.
The sight of the dyer, running forward with bloodred arms and axe uplifted, and with his cluster of rough companions behind him, had a stimulating effect on the crowd. Not that he did anything else than pass beyond the soldiers and thrust himself well among his fellow-citizens, flourishing his axe; but he served as a stirring symbol of street-fighting, like the waving of a well-known gonfalon. And the first sign that fire was ready to burst out was something as rapid as a little leaping tongue of flame: it was an act of the conjuror’s impish lad Lollo, who was dancing and jeering in front of the ingenuous boys that made the majority of the crowd. Lollo had no great compassion for the prisoners, but being conscious of an excellent knife which was his unfailing companion, it had seemed to him from the first that to jump forward, cut a rope, and leap back again before the soldier who held it could use his weapon, would be an amusing and dexterous piece of mischief. And now, when the people began to hoot and jostle more vigorously, Lollo felt that his moment was come—he was close to the eldest prisoner: in an instant he had cut the cord.