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“Do you mean here inside the city?” the nearsighted man asked.

“Just thirty paces from here.”

São Pedro. The street that cut through Canudos from the river to the cemetery, the one parallel to Campo Grande, one of the few that deserved to be called a street. Now it was a barricade and the soldiers were there. Just thirty paces away. A chill ran up his spine. The sound of prayers grew louder, softer, disappeared, mounted again, and it seemed to the nearsighted journalist that in the intervals between explosions he could hear the Counselor’s hoarse voice or the tiny piping voice of the Little Blessed One there outside, and that the women, the wounded, the oldsters, the dying, the jagunço sharpshooters were all reciting the Ave Maria in chorus. What must the soldiers think of these prayers?

“It’s also sad that a priest should be obliged to take rifle in hand,” Father Joaquim said, patting the weapon that he was holding across his knees, just as the jagunços did. “I didn’t know how to shoot. Father Martinez had never shot a rifle either, not even to go deer-hunting.”

Was this the same elderly little man the nearsighted journalist had seen whimpering and sniveling before Colonel Moreira César, half dead with panic?

“Father Martinez?” he asked.

He sensed Father Joaquim’s sudden wariness. So there were other priests in Canudos with them. He imagined them loading their guns, aiming, shooting. But wasn’t the Church on the side of the Republic? Hadn’t the Counselor been excommunicated by the archbishop? Hadn’t edicts condemning the mad, fanatical heretic of Canudos been read aloud in all the parishes? How, then, could there be curés killing for the Counselor?

“Do you hear them? Listen, listen: ‘Fanatics, Sebastianists! Cannibals! Englishmen! Murderers!’ Who was it who came here to kill women and children, to slit people’s throats? Who was it who forced youngsters of thirteen and fourteen to become combatants? You’re here and you’re still alive, isn’t that true?”

He shook with terror from head to foot. Father Joaquim was going to hand him over to the jagunços to be made a victim of their vengeance, their hatred.

“Because the fact is you came with the Throat-Slitter, isn’t that true?” the curé went on. “And yet you’ve been given a roof over your head, food, hospitality. Would the soldiers do as much for one of Pedrão’s or Pajeú’s or Abbot João’s men?”

In a choked voice, he stammered in answer: “Yes, yes, you’re right. I’m most grateful to you for having helped me so much, Father Joaquim. I swear it, I swear it.”

“They’re being killed by the dozens, by the hundreds.” The curé of Cumbe pointed in the direction of the street. “And what for? For believing in God, for living their lives in accordance with God’s law. It’s the Massacre of the Innocents, all over again.”

Was the priest about to burst into tears, to stamp his feet in rage, to roll about on the floor in despair? But then the nearsighted journalist saw that the priest, controlling himself with an effort, was beginning to calm down, standing there dejectedly listening to the shots, the prayers, the church bells. The journalist thought he heard bugle commands as well. Still not recovered from the scare that he had had, he timidly asked the priest if by chance he had seen Jurema and the Dwarf. The curé shook his head.

At that moment he heard a melodious baritone voice from close by say: “They’ve been at São Pedro, helping to erect the barricade.”

The monocle of glass shards allowed him to make out, just barely, the Lion of Natuba alongside the little open door of the Sanctuary, either sitting or kneeling, but in any event hunched down inside his dirt-covered tunic, looking at him with his great gleaming eyes. Had he been there for some time or had he just come in? This strange being, half human and half animal, so disconcerted him that he was unable to thank him or utter a single word. He could hardly see him, for the light had grown dimmer, though a beam of waning light was coming in through