it had abode for so many years. This consideration made him leave it for the present in the same place and manner in which he found it; and although he visited it afterwards when in course of the chase he came to those parts, nevertheless he never took in hand to improve the poor hermitage in which it was, nor would he have done it, if the Virgin had not saved him from a notorious danger of death, which, peradventure, God permitted, as a punishment for his negligence, and in this manner to make the virtue of the Holy Image manifest to the world. It was thus, that going to his ordinary exercise of the chase, in the month of September, in the year of Christ 1182, and on the 14th of the month, being the day on which the church celebrates the festival of the Exaltation of the Cross upon the which Christ redeemed the human race, as the day rose thick with clouds, which ordinarily arise from the sea, and the country round about could not be seen by reason of the clouds, save for a little space, it befell that the dogs put up a stag, (if indeed it were one,) and Dom Fuas pressing his horse in pursuit, without fear of any danger, because he thought it was all plain ground, and the mist hindered him from seeing where he was, found himself upon the very edge of the rock on the precipice, two hundred fathoms above the sea, at a moment when it was no longer in his power to turn the reins, nor could he do any thing more than invoke the succours of the Virgin Mary, whose image was in that place; and she succoured him in such a manner, that less than two palms from the edge of the rock, on a long and narrow point thereof, the horse stopt as if it had been made of stone, the marks of his hoofs remaining in proof of the miracle imprinted in the living rock, such as at this day they are seen by all strangers and persons on pilgrimage, who go to visit the Image of Our Lady; and it is a notable thing, and deserving of serious consideration, to see that in the midst of this rock, upon which the miracle happened, and on the side towards the east, and in a part where, because it is suspended in the air, it is not possible that any human being could reach, Nature herself has impressed a cross as if nailed to the hardness of the rock, as though she had sanctified that cliff therewith, and marked it with that holy sign, to be the theatre in which the miraculous circumstance was to be celebrated; which, by reason that it took place on the day of the Exaltation of the Cross, seemed as if it showed the honour and glory which should from thence redound to the Lord who redeemed us thereon. Dom Fuas seeing himself delivered from so great danger, and knowing from whence the grace had come to him, went to the little hermitage, where, with that great devotion which the presence of the miracle occasioned, he gave infinite thanks to Our Lady, accusing himself before her of having neglected to repair the house, and promising all the amends which his possibility permitted.