“In the morning, when the monks came into the church, the stranger was found still unconscious upon the altar steps. He was taken into the convent, and, when he came to himself, he told what had happened. Great search was made in the archives of the monastery, though nothing was found to account for it. But long after, when some repairs were being made in the cathedral, the body of a monk in his robe and cowl was found walled up, evidently for some crime, near the altar, just at the spot where the Knight had seen him vanish.”[338]
A railway took us from Palermo to Caldane, almost on the opposite coast, and there we were transferred to a wretched tumble-down diligence, which went swinging and jolting over the deep pools in the rocky road. Though there were no regular brigands on this road, the peasants, who were too idle to work, constantly formed themselves into great bands and attacked the diligences; so the Sardinian Government, too feeble to attempt managing the people themselves, sent a guard to defend us from them. Two soldiers with guns sat on the luggage, and loaded pistols peeped ominously from under the cloaks of the Sicilians within, one of whom was an impiégato per la caccia dei briganti. However, late at night we reached Caltanisetta, a great poverty-stricken city, with white houses, white rocks, and no vegetation, high in the sulphur district.
On going to the station the next morning, we heard that the railway near Messina was washed away, and that the last train had narrowly escaped a Tay Bridge disaster by the breaking of the high bridge at Ali. So we telegraphed to Taormina to send a carriage to meet us at Giardini, the place nearest the scene of the disaster. We did not reach Giardini till it was pitch-dark; the sea was raging close to the railway, and the rain had been falling all day in torrents. It was such a night as one scarcely ever sees, so tempestuous, so utterly black! There was no carriage for us, and no one to meet us; the telegraph had been swept away in the storm. Blankly and grimly did the officials see the large party deposited at the desolate station surrounded by waters, and great was the consternation of my four female companions when they found that it was just going to be closed and abandoned. We got a man to wade through the marsh to Giardini to try to get a carriage to come to us: the carriage tried, but an intercepting torrent was so swollen, it was impossible for it to cross without being swept out to sea. The man came back along the railway parapet, and told us that we must give up all hope of getting away. The officials refused to send any one with us; no one would face the furies of the night; nor could they lend us a lanthorn; they wanted it themselves. Happily I had made friends with a young man of Taormina—capo della musica—who happened to be at the station. He had a lanthorn, and kindly waited for us, till at last my companions consented to kilt up their dresses and venture out into the blackness. It was four miles by the road, about a mile and half by the precipices; we chose the latter. But the path through the precipices, which we had toiled up before in burning sunshine, was now a roaring torrent. However, there was nothing for it but to plunge in absolute blackness from stone to stone of the steep ascent, holding on to the broom and asphodels. At the most dangerous points the capo della musica, who made the little joke of “Io solo sono sole,” kindly waited with his lanthorn till each of the party of eight was safely round the corner. Fortunately the rain almost ceased during the ascent, and at last, by scrambling, jumping, or grovelling, we found ourselves in the street of Taormina. The people of the inn were gone to bed, but soon the great event of a large party with ladies arriving on such a terrific night caused many windows to open in the friendly primitive street, and heads and candles to appear: the hotel was roused, and we were warmly welcomed.