Gandolfo told how the judge, when Gaetano had acknowledged that, had shown him his fellow-prisoners and asked him: “‘If you loved that woman, how can you have anything in common with the men who have murdered her?’”
Then Don Gaetano had turned towards the bandits. He had raised his clenched hand and shaken it at them. And he had looked as if he had longed for a dagger, to be able to strike them down one after another.
“‘With those!’” he had shouted. “‘Should I have anything in common with those?’”
And he had certainly meant to say that he had nothing to do with robbers and murderers. The judge had smiled kindly at him, as if he had only waited for that answer to set him free.
But then a divine miracle had happened.
And Gandolfo told, how among all the stolen things that lay on the table, there had also been a little Christ image. It was a yard high, richly covered with jewels and adorned with a gold crown and gold shoes. Just at that moment one of the officers bent down to draw the image to him; and as he did so, the crown fell to the floor and rolled all the way to Don Gaetano.
Don Gaetano picked up the Christ-crown, held it a moment in his hands and looked at it carefully. It seemed as if he had read something in it.
He did not hold it more than one minute. In the next the guard took it from him.
Donna Micaela looked up almost frightened. The Christ image! He was there already! Should she so soon get an answer to her prayer?
Gandolfo continued: “But when Don Gaetano looked up, every one trembled as at a miracle, for the man was transformed.