"Who sent him? It was our Lord. He said to him, 'Go into the sea and drown.'"
As George observed in a low voice to one of the bystanders that the child, succored in time, could have been saved, and that they had killed him by putting his head low and suspending him by the feet, he felt the mother's gaze fixed on himself.
"Do something for him, signor," she implored. "Do something for him."
She prayed:
"O Madonna of Miracles, perform the miracle!"
She repeated, touching the head of the dead:
"My son! My son! My son! Arise! Walk!"
Before her, on his knees, was the brother of the dead child; and he sobbed with grief, gazing about him from time to time with a face that had suddenly become indifferent. Another brother, the eldest, remained seated near by in the shadow of a rock, and he simulated grief by hiding his face in his hands. In order to console the mother, the women bent around her with gestures of pity, and accompanied the monody with a few groans.
She chanted:
"Why did I send you away from my house? Why have I sent you to your death? I have done everything to feed my sons, everything but sold myself. And it is for a morsel of bread that I have lost you! That, that is how you were to end. They have drowned you, my son!"