"I may tell you now, my excellent Father Atanasio," answered Don Cesare, and a knavish smile might have been seen to flash for one instant from his eyes: "Yesterday, when we let down the good Evolino from the rocks into the sea, everybody was crying for rain! rain! What was the rain to me? I shouted with them because I wished them well, but as for me, in the depths of my heart I asked for something quite different."
"So, so!" said Father Atanasio, and poked the Syndic in the side behind Don Cesare's back. He looked triumphantly around at those who followed, winked at them with pompous, victorious eyes, and seemed suddenly to grow a head taller than all the others, in the consciousness of possessing such penetrating power of divining the hidden secrets of the human breast.
"Yes, that is allowed to every one," continued Don Cesare, "and look! the good Evolino has fulfilled the others' wish, and so I think to myself; yours, too, will be fulfilled, Don Cesare, for there is not one in the whole community that treats him as well as I do."
He thought about the foreign ships all the time he was speaking, and gave a hasty glance toward the horizon, but nothing was to be seen there, and he was forced to confine his hopes and longings to Carmela and Nino. They had arrived at the foot of the promontory.
"I think we will remain below," said the Syndic; "the rope will be hard to draw from the cliff, and, besides, some harm might easily happen to the saint."
No one made any objection to this wise precaution, and on they went over the steep path, in a long single file, as a flock of geese marches, one behind the other--first the Syndic, then the padre, then Don Cesare, then the rest. The rocks had grown very slippery from the wet; every time a cowled figure lost footing and tumbled, more or less ridiculously, into the sand, or caught at a neighbor's arm, or dress, or leg, then arose a great laughing and screaming, and so the whole company by degrees was brought into the best possible humor and unanimity of mind.
Suddenly the procession came to a stop. The Syndic had turned pale as chalk, and stood rooted to the ground. They could see his fat cheeks shake, and his knees tremble, and were uncertain whether it was the strong wind, or a terrible fright that made his hair rise up and stand stiffly out all round his head.
"Holy Madonna!" they heard him gasp; "holy Madonna!"
"What is it? what is the matter?" they cried from every side, crowding forward, and pitching over the rocks and through the water. But they one and all stiffened with horror when they saw Saint Pancras, whom they had thrown into the sea the day before, standing in the hollow of the rocks, and, oh, fearful sight! holding his head in his arms! and, oh, inconceivable miracle! the key of his chapel which they had left in the door, now hung from the saint's finger!
Dumb from terror, old and young, men and women, remained as if spellbound; cold shivers ran down their backs; they pressed closer together, every hand made the sign of the cross on forehead and breast at the same moment, every mouth murmured the prayer to the blessed Madonna.