“Nicoló, Nicoló! Art thou yet alive?” he shrieked. “Oh, my brother, make one little sign! Until tonight I heard his voice crying for help! It has grown weaker and weaker; now I hear no sound. If help had come in time, I could have saved him, saved my brother, do you hear? Him, his wife, his little child, God knows how many others now dead, _sotto le macerie_.” Under the masonry! No one who was in Italy during this dreadful season will ever forget that phrase, “_sotto le macerie_,” the deadly refrain of the great tragedy. Where is your mother, your lover, your child? The answer was always the same “_sotto le macerie_.” The King, Bonanno said, above all else insisted that his visit should bring no interruption to the rescue work: indeed it proved an impetus to it, for he did much to establish something approaching system. The work of excavation was begun by the Russian sailors. Three Russian warships, the “Cesarevich,” the “Makaroff” and the “Slava,” cruising off the Calabrian coast, met a vessel--some say English, some say Italian--flying to Naples with the news of the earthquake: the Russians hurried to Messina, they were the first to arrive on the ground. What they did there Sicily will remember as long as her history survives. Like Francesco Calabresi, my plumber, the Avvocato Bonanno described their work in rescuing the entombed men, women and children as something superhuman. “They did not wait for orders, they did not need them; each of them was an inspired leader; they saw no danger, but rushed like madmen among crumbling ruins, toppling walls; they worked like Titans I tell you. The English were not long behind the Russians, as you may believe. What a people! We Sicilians know what we owe them! Did these foreigners save many lives? Yes, hundreds, thousands of lives. More than all, the sight of their incredible labors--I say it to you again, they worked like gods not men--broke the spell of apathy that at first held us powerless. _Madonna mia!_ I myself felt it, though at Taormina the shock was light. At first I was stunned, dazed, lacked power to lift a hand! These unfortunates, you may believe, were worse. The first man I met after I returned to Messina was a colleague of mine; we had worked in the same office. He was quite stupefied. He did not know if any of his family had escaped or not, he did not seem to care. The visit of the King roused the people; ah! it was like cordial to one who faints. Imagine, on the fourth day hardly a cup of water, scarcely a loaf of bread had come to us from the outside. Was it wonderful we believed the end of the world had come, that we were abandoned by God and man?” And all this time the great stream of supplies was pouring in a steady flood toward Messina. The city was like a man who dies of starvation in the midst of plenty, because he has lost the power to swallow.