'Eh, Don Giacomo? He is the postmaster and the telegrapher, and he plays the old organ in the big church on Sundays. But when there is a festival here, a professor comes to play this one, from Catania. But he cannot play as you do.'
Orsino had gone down again into the church while Ippolito had been playing. They found him bending very low over an inscription on a slab near the altar steps.
'There is a curious inscription here,' he said, without looking up. 'I cannot quite read it, but it seems to me that I see our name in it. It would be strange if one of our family had chanced to die and be buried here, ages ago.'
Ippolito bent down, too, till his head touched his brother's.
'It is not Latin,' he said presently. 'It looks like Italian.'
The fat sacristan jingled his keys rather impatiently, for it was growing late.
'Without troubling yourselves to read it, you may know what it is,' he said. 'It is the old prophecy about the Pagliuca. When the dead walk here at night they read it. It says, 'Esca Pagliuca pesca Saracen.' But it goes round a circle like a disc, so that you can read it, 'Saracen esca Pagliuca pesca'—either, Let Pagliuca go out, the Saracen is fishing, or, Let the Saracen go out, Pagliuca is fishing.'
'"Or Saracinesca Pagliuca pesca"—Saracinesca fishes for Pagliuca,' said Ippolito to Orsino, with a laugh at his own ingenuity.
'Who knows what it means!' exclaimed the sacristan. 'But they say that when it comes true, the last Corleone shall die and the Pagliuca d'Oriani shall end. But whether they end or not, they will walk here till the Last Judgment. Signori, the twilight descends. If you do not wish to see the Pagliuca, let us go. But if you wish to see them, here are the keys. You are the masters, but I go home. This is an evil place at night.'
The man was growing nervous, and moved away towards the door. The two brothers followed him.