THIRD BOOK
“And he shall win many followers”
I
THE OASIS AND THE DESERT
In the spring of 1894 the Etna railway was begun; in the autumn of 1895 it was finished. It went up from the shore, made a circuit round the mountain in a wide half-circle, and came down again to the shore.
Trains come and go every day, and Mongibello lies subdued and makes no sign. Foreigners pass with amazement through the black, distorted lava streams, through the groves of white almond-trees, through the dark old Saracen towns. “Look, look! is there such a land on earth!” they say.
In the railway carriages there is always some one telling of the time when the Christ-image was in Diamante.
What a time! What a time! Each day new miracles were performed. They cannot tell of them all, but he brought as much happiness to Diamante as if the hours of the day had been dancing maidens. People thought that Time had filled his hour-glass with shining sands of gold.