While Cuyapit and the chaplain were on their knees a tremor shook the floor. Slight earthquakes of this kind were not unusual. Though the walls of the house rattled, the statue remained fixed and still. Another jar was felt in the ground, and raising their hands to the saint, the petitioners begged him fervently to intercede against a dangerous shock. Presently they lifted their eyes, and were struck dumb with amazement, for the statue had unclasped its hands, the one pointing toward Manila, as if in warning; the other holding the golden cross toward heaven, as if in an appeal for mercy. A halo, so bright as to dazzle the beholders, played about the head, the lips moved, and from the upturned eyes tears trickled down the cheeks. Cuyapit and the priest arose and tried to stanch these tears, but the cloth they used was soon as wet as if they had just taken it from the river. Then the statue raised its arms high over its head, as in a last appeal for mercy to the world, while the tears gushed in such a stream that they made a continuous fall to the floor. A look of horror wrung the face, as if the prayer had been refused; and, extending its hands in benediction, the saint toppled from his pedestal and was broken into fragments. When these occurrences had been told by Cuyapit in the Church of San Francisco, under an oath before the Virgin, the pieces were carried in reverential procession to Manila, and the miracle of San Francisco of the Tears is accepted there as history. Suppressing Magic in Manila Crowds of all kinds are easily swayed, but it is said that nowhere is it so easy to rouse a panic or a revolution as in Manila. Several times during the earlier months of the American occupation vague fears spread through the city, people ran to their homes or locked themselves in their shops in terror, lights were put out, armed guards were posted; then, after a few hours, everybody asked everybody else what the matter had been, and nobody knew.