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“How many of you are there?” he asked, gesturing to them at the same time to hug the façade of the building.

“Nine,” Antônio answered. “And Pedrim’s inside, wounded.”

“Come on,” Abbot João said, turning around. “Be careful, there are soldiers inside lots of the houses.”

But the cangaceiro himself was not at all cautious, for, holding himself erect, he strode rapidly down the middle of the street, as he went on to explain that they were attacking the churches and the cemetery from the direction of the river and that the soldiers must be prevented from approaching from this way as well, since that would leave the Counselor isolated. He wanted to close Campo Grande off with a barrier at Mártires, almost at the corner of the Chapel of Santo Antônio.

Some three hundred yards separated them from there, and Antônio was surprised to see how much damage had been done: houses demolished, torn from their foundations, riddled with holes, rubble, heaps of debris, broken roof tiles, charred planks with scattered corpses lying in the middle of them, and clouds of smoke and dust that blurred, effaced, dissolved everything. Here and there, like markers of the soldiers’ advance, were tongues of fire from burning buildings. Striding up to Mártires at Abbot João’s side, he repeated Catarina’s message to him. The cangaceiro nodded without turning his head. Suddenly they came upon a patrol of soldiers at the entrance to the Rua Maria Madalena, and Antônio saw João take a running jump and send his knife flying through the air, as in marksmanship contests. He, too, broke into a run, shooting. The bullets whined all around him and a moment later he stumbled and fell to the ground. But he was able to get to his feet and dodge the bayonet that he saw coming at him and drag the soldier down into the mud with him. He traded blows with the man, not knowing whether he had his knife in his hand or not. All of a sudden he felt the soldier double over and go limp. Abbot João helped Antônio to his feet.

“Gather up the dogs’ weapons,” he ordered at the same time. “The bayonets, the bullets, the knapsacks.”

Honôrio and two aides were bending over Anastáció, another aide, trying to lift him.

Abbot João stopped them. “Don’t bother. He’s dead. Drag the bodies along with you. We can use them to block the street.”

And setting the example, he grabbed the nearest corpse by one foot and started walking in the direction of Mártires. At the entrance to the street were many jagunços, already busy erecting the barricade with everything they could find at hand. Antônio Vilanova set to work along with them. They could hear shots, bursts of gunfire, and a few moments later a youngster from the Catholic Guard appeared to tell Abbot João, who was helping Antônio bring up the wheels of a cart, that the heretics were again advancing on the Temple of the Blessed Jesus. “Everybody back there,” Abbot João shouted, and the jagunços followed along behind him on the run. They entered the square just as several soldiers, led by a fair-haired young man brandishing a saber and discharging a revolver, came out onto it from the cemetery. A heavy fusillade from the chapel and the towers and rooftop of the Temple under construction kept the soldiers from advancing. “Follow them, follow them,” Antônio heard Abbot João roar. Dozens of men poured out of the churches to join in the pursuit. He saw Big João, immense, barefoot, catch up with the Street Commander and talk to him as he ran. The soldiers had entrenched themselves behind the cemetery, and on entering São Cipriano the jagunços were met with a hail of bullets. “He’s going to get killed,” Antônio, who had flung himself headlong onto the ground, thought as he saw Abbot João standing in the middle of the street gesturing to those following him to take cover in the houses or hit the dirt.

Then he walked over to Antônio, squatted down alongside him, and said in his ear: “Go back to the barricade and secure it. We have to dislodge those troops from here and push them back to where Pajeú is going to pounce on them. Go