“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.  But now commenced the war of words, and the clamor of voices, which usually succeed, as well as precede, all contests of a popular nature.  The officer in charge of this portion of the square questioned; twenty answered in a breath, not only drowning each other’s voices, but effectually contradicting all that was said in the way of explanation.  One maintained that Conrad had not been content with attacking Maso’s dog, but that he had followed up the blow by offering a personal indignity to the master himself; this was the publican in whose house the mariner had taken up his abode, and in which he had been sufficiently liberal in his expenditure fairly to entitle him to the hospitable support of its landlord.  Another professed his readiness to swear that the dog was the property of the pilgrim, being accustomed to carry his wallet, and that Maso, owing to an ancient grudge against both master and beast, had hurled the stone which sent the animal away howling, and had resented a mild remonstrance of its owner in the extraordinary manner that all had seen.  This witness was the Neapolitan juggler, Pippo, who had much attached himself to the person of Conrad since the adventure of the bark, and who was both ready and willing to affirm anything in behalf of a friend who had so evident need of his testimony, if it were only on the score of boon-companionship.  A third declared that the dog belonged truly to the Italian, that the stone had been really hurled by one who stood near the pilgrim, who had been wrongfully accused of the offence by Maso; that the latter had made his attack under a false impression, and richly merited punishment for the unceremonious manner in which he had stopped Conrad’s breath.  This witness was perfectly honest, but of a vulgar and credulous mind.  He attributed the original offence to one near that happened to have a bad name, and who was very liable to father every sin that, by possibility, could be laid at his door, as well