the distance separating him from the cavalrymen. They pass in front of him, in a cloud of dust, and he wonders how they can have failed to see him when he has come running across open terrain and is now shooting at them. Yet none of the lancers even looks his way. Now, however, as though his thought of a moment before has alerted them, the lead squad suddenly veers to the left. He sees a cavalryman make a circular motion with his dress sword, as though calling to him, as though saluting him, and then sees the dozen lancers gallop in his direction. His rifle is empty. He grabs his revolver in his two hands, leaning on his elbows, determined to save these last bullets till the horses are right on top of him. There the faces of the devils are, contorted with rage, their spurs digging cruelly into the flanks of their mounts, their long lances quivering, their balloon pants billowing in the wind. He shoots one, two, three bullets at the one with the saber without hitting him, thinking that nothing will save him from being run through by those lances, from being crushed to death by those hoofs pounding on the stones. But something happens, and again he senses the presence of the supernatural. Many figures suddenly appear from behind him, shooting, brandishing machetes, knives, hammers; they fling themselves upon the animals and their riders, shooting at them, knifing them, hacking at them, in a dizzying whirlwind. He sees jagunços hanging on to the cavalrymen’s lances and legs and cutting the reins; he sees horses roll over onto the ground and hears roars of pain, whinnies, curses, shots. At least two lancers ride across him without trampling him before he manages to rise to his feet and join the fray. He shoots the last two bullets in his revolver, and using the Mannlicher as a club, he runs toward the nearest atheists and jagunços fighting hand to hand on the ground. He swings the rifle butt at a soldier who has a jagunço pinned to the ground and lashes out at him till he topples over and stops moving. He helps the jagunço to his feet and the two of them rush to rescue Honório, who is being pursued by a cavalryman with his lance outstretched. When he sees them coming toward him, the gaucho puts spurs to his mount and gallops off in the direction of Belo Monte. For some time, Antônio runs from one place to another amid the cloud of dust, helping those who have fallen to their feet, loading and emptying his revolver. Some of his comrades are badly wounded and others dead, run through with lances. One of them is bleeding profusely from a deep saber cut. He sees himself, as though in a dream, bludgeoning unhorsed gauchos to death with the butt of his rifle, as others are doing with their machetes. When the hand-to-hand combat ends for lack of enemies and the jagunços regroup, Antônio tells them they must go back to the dugouts, but as he is saying that he notices, when the clouds of reddish dust part for a moment, that the spot where they were lying in ambush before is now being overrun by companies of Freemasons, spread out in formation as far as the eye can see.
There are not more than fifty men around him. What about the others? Those who were able to drag themselves about have gone back to Belo Monte. “But there weren’t many of them,” a toothless jagunço, Zózimo the tinsmith, growls. Antônio is surprised to see him among the combatants, when his age and his infirmities should have kept him in Belo Monte putting out fires and helping to bring the wounded to the Health Houses. There is no sense in staying here where they are; a new cavalry charge would be the end of them.
“We’re going to go give Big João a hand,” he tells them.
They break up into groups of three or four, and offering those who are limping an arm to lean on, taking cover in folds in the terrain, they start back to Belo Monte. Antônio falls to the rear, alongside Honório and Zózimo. Perhaps the great clouds of dust, perhaps the sun’s rays, perhaps the enemy’s eagerness to invade Canudos, suffice to explain why neither the troops advancing on their left nor the