"I'm glad she didn't wake. She was very tired, poor child," commented Cousin Clare, after a glance at the bed in the corner.
Dulcie was, of course, unmercifully teased next morning for having slept through an earthquake.
"If Etna shot its cone off during the night I don't believe it would wake you!" laughed Everard. "The Seven Sleepers are nothing to you."
"Go on! Rag me as much as you like. I don't care," declared Dulcie sturdily. "I think I had far the best of it. You were all awake and scared, while I was snug and comfy. I shall sleep through the next if we have one. Ashamed of myself? Not a bit of it! I tell you I'm proud."
Everybody was looking forward to a day's sight-seeing in Palermo, and as soon as breakfast was over the party started out to view the cathedral, the beautiful Palatine chapel, with its Saracen arches and priceless mosaics, and the ancient oriental-looking Norman church of S. Giovanni degli Eremite. Dulcie, who had been learning Longfellow's Robert of Sicily for her last recitation in the elocution class at school, was much thrilled, and wanted to know in which of the churches he had made his famous defiance of Heaven, and had been turned from his throne by the angel, who temporarily took his place as king till he repented of his vain glory. Nobody could tell her, however, and the guide-book gave no information on the subject, though Douglas obligingly searched its pages. Knowing she loved old legends about the places, he found another item of interest for her in connection with one of the ancient towers of S. Giovanni degli Eremite. It was from there that in the Middle Ages, when the French ruled the island, a vesper bell had tolled the signal for the inhabitants to rise and fall upon their cruel masters in a massacre that was known ever afterwards as "The Sicilian Vespers."
"Bells have never been rung in Sicily since," said Douglas, then as Dulcie's eyebrows went up in amazed contradiction he explained: "They are never really rung here. In most countries the bells swing backwards and forwards, but in our churches they are quite steady, and only the clapper moves about inside the bell."
"Oh, that's why they sound so frightfully clangy, then; we noticed the difference at once when we came over from Malta."
"Yes, you would. The church bells of Malta are the most beautiful in the world. They're partly made of silver, and they swing properly in the belfries."
"I love to see really Sicilian things."
"Then you shall," put in Signor Trapani. "We'll try and show you the local color of Palermo to-day."