“Maria Santa is my witness,” cried the woman passionately, “that for two years next to nothing has been spent for the patron’s festa! There were warnings: an old crone appeared to a contadino and, waving her stick, cried three times, acqua, acqua, acqua leggiera, then she disappeared in the clouds. The contadino from that day was seen no more. Behold! three weeks before the earthquake, the acqua leggiera came—it was a cloudburst, bad enough but nothing to what came after—if we had only taken warning!”
She wiped the saint’s foot with her apron, kissed it, and wiped again as good manners demand.
“Behold! here is money for two candles; let me see you light them.” Patsy gave her a franc.
“May you be blessed, by Santissima Maria, by all the saints, by the Apostles! The ignorant say that San Pancrazio and San Pietro were brothers—a madness! Saint Peter was a Sicilian, white as the blessed Lord himself. San Pancrazio was a Moor, with a black skin as you see. The truth is, their mothers were sisters and they were cousins. The morning of the terramoto we carried San Pancrazio to the Piazza outside there and showed him to the sea. It was a terrible sight! The water had been drawn back one hundred metres; we saw all the rocks at the bottom, the great fish leaping in the air. After a moment a big wave came high, high, and remained on the shore. It broke the boats, tore the nets; one fisherman was drowned. When the wave saw San Pancrazio, poco à poco, it went back to its place.”
“It was pitch-dark,” murmured Patsy, “nobody saw anything.”
“Enough, enough, nonna,” Ciro interrupted, “the signori are in haste! To San Domenico now? I will call the custode, he is my friend.”
“What does that strip of black cloth nailed across the shutter signify?” Patsy asked, as we walked towards San Domenico.
“Mourning,” Ciro explained. “Wherever you see it, you may know that in the house dwell refugees, or people who have lost relations in the earthquake.”
Every third house in Taormina had this mourning badge.
Waiting outside the church of San Domenico, were two gentlemen from Turin, a large urbane man, and a slight taciturn person who never spoke. Patsy, who apparently knew them, began asking questions about the church.