In the meantime, dozens of men had appeared, apparently springing from the earth itself. They had presumably come up from Palissano at the news that strangers were up at the Burel and they stood motionless on the brows of the various peaks of yellow earth, watching without a word.
“Fine audience you’ve got now,” remarked Andronico in an attempt at a joke, directed at Gerol, who was involved in some maneuvers concerning the goat with two hunters.
The young man looked up and saw the strangers staring at him. He assumed an expression of disdain and continued with what he was doing.
The dragon, exhausted, had slithered down the rock face onto the gravel; it was lying there, motionless except for its swollen stomach, which was still throbbing.
“Ready!” shouted one of the hunters, lifting the goat from the ground with Gerol’s help. They had opened its stomach and put in an explosive charge with a fuse attached.
The Count then advanced fearlessly across the scree until he was about thirty feet from the dragon, put the goat carefully on the ground and walked away, unwinding the fuse.
They had to wait for half an hour before the creature moved. The strangers standing on the crests of the hills stood like statues: silent even among themselves, their faces expressed cold disapproval. Indifferent to the sun which was now immensely strong, they stared fixedly at the reptile, as though willing it not to move.
But at last the dragon, with another bullet in its back, turned suddenly, saw the goat and dragged itself slowly toward it. It was about to stretch out its head and seize its prey when the Count lit the fuse. The spark ran rapidly along it, reached the goat and the charge exploded.
The report was not loud, much less so in fact than the culverin shots: sharp yet muffled, like a plank breaking. Yet the dragon’s body was hurled violently backward, its belly had obviously been ripped open. Once again the head began to move slowly from side to side as though it were saying no, that it wasn’t fair, that they had been too cruel and that there was now no more it could do.
The Count laughed gleefully, but this time he laughed alone.
“Oh, how awful! That’s enough!” gasped Maria, covering her face with her hands.
“Yes,” said her husband slowly, “I agree, this may end badly.”
The monster was lying in a pool of black blood, apparently exhausted. And now from each of its two flanks there rose a column of dark smoke, one on the left and one on the right, two slow-moving plumes rising, it seemed, with difficulty.
“Do you see that?” said Inghirami to his colleague.
“I do,” affirmed the other.
“Two blowholes just like those of the Ceratosaurus, the so-called opercula hammeriana.”
“No,” said Fusti, “it’s not a Ceratosaurus.”
At this juncture Gerol emerged from behind the boulder where he’d been hiding and came forward to deliver the final blow. He was right in the middle of the stretch of gravel with his iron club in his hand, when the assembled company gave a shriek.
For a moment Gerol thought it was a shout of triumph for the slaying of the dragon. Then he became aware of movement behind him. He turned around sharply and saw—ridiculous—two pathetic little creatures tumbling out of the cave and coming toward him at some speed. Two small half-formed reptiles no more than two feet long, diminutive versions of the dying dragon. Two small dragons, its children, probably driven out of the cave by hunger.
It was a matter of minutes. The Count gave a wonderfully skillful performance. “Take that! And that!” he shouted gleefully, swinging the iron club. And two blows were enough. Aimed strongly and decisively, the club struck the two little monsters one after the other and smashed in their heads like glass bowls. They collapsed and lay dead, looking, from a distance, like half-deflated bagpipes.
But now the strangers, without a word, turned and fled up the stony gulleys as though from some unexpected danger. Without making a sound, without dislodging a pebble or turning for a moment to look at the dragon’s cave, they disappeared as mysteriously as they had come.
Now the dragon was moving again—it seemed as though it were never going to make the final effort to die. Dragging itself like a snail and still giving off two puffs of smoke, it went toward the two little dead creatures. When it had reached them it collapsed onto the stones, stretched out its head with infinite difficulty and began to lick them gently, perhaps hoping to resuscitate them.
Finally, the dragon seemed to collect all its remaining strength: it raised its neck toward the sky to emit, first very softly but then with a rising crescendo, an unspeakable, incredible howl, a sound neither animal nor human but one so full of loathing that even Count Gerol stood still, paralyzed with horror.
Now they saw why it had not wanted to go back into its den (where it could have found shelter) and why it hadn’t roared or howled but merely hissed. The dragon was thinking of its children, to save them it had given up its own hope of escape; for if it had hidden in its cave the men would have followed it and discovered its young; and had it made any noise, the little creatures would have come out to see what was happening. Only now, once it had seen them die, did the monster give this terrible shriek.
It was asking for help, and for vengeance for its children. But from whom? From the mountains, parched and uninhabited? From the birdless, cloudless sky, from those men who were torturing it? The shriek pierced the walls of rock and the dome of the sky, it filled the whole world. Unreasonably enough it seemed completely impossible that there should be no reply.
“Who can it be calling?” said Andronico, trying in vain to
