The poor men took no heed of what they thought a vision of the night; nor did they obey the Virgin when she came again. But when on the third night the Queen of Heaven descended to this murky world, she towered above their boat incensed and awful, denouncing against them all the pains of hell and outer darkness if they dared neglect her bidding. The fear-struck fishers hastened to their Bishop on the first light of morning and told him their tale. He too had seen a celestial vision, warning him of the coming of the sailors. There was no room for doubt or hesitation. He put himself at the head of a long penitent procession, went up the hill, discovered a well just where the flame had burnt, and in the well the marvellous picture which now adorns the church. How came the picture there? If one could answer that question some light would be thrown on the age of the relic. The country people when they see any work of ancient art are disposed to say, "San Luca l'ha pittato"! ("St. Luke painted it"), as he did the Madonna of the Carmine in Naples; and accordingly this picture also has been ascribed to the brush of the Evangelist. The priests themselves do not claim an origin so sacred for their canvas, but maintain that it is an early Greek work, buried for safety in the days when, at the bidding of the iconoclastic Emperor, Leo the Isaurian, an attempt was made to root out image worship from the land. I do not know whether any competent expert has pronounced the painting to be of an age which renders the story probable. Ecclesiastical traditions are frequently inspired rather by piety than truth, and for my part, when I remember what ravages the Turks committed along these coasts up to the boyhood of men not long dead, I can find no reason for going back to the eighth century to discover facts which may have led either priests or laymen to bury sacred things. In these days the Madonna of Pozzano walks no more upon the sea. Yet she remains, in a particular degree, the protectress of all sailors; and one may very well suspect that the priestly tale of the miraculous light, the hidden well, and the long-forgotten picture, does but conceal some record of kindness done to mariners which we heretics might prize more highly. For in old days, when ships approaching Naples may have found it hard to set their course after the light faded, and harder still to anchor off a lee shore, a beacon fire on the monastery roof would have been a noble aid, such as must have saved many a tall ship and brought many a sailor home to his wife in safety. Surely in some such facts as these lies the explanation of the traditional attachment of the sailors to the Madonna of Pozzano. "Ave Maria, Stella Maris!"--a star of the sea indeed, if it was the beacon kindled by her servants by which poor mariners steered back to port.