“‘Marietta, art thou alive?’ ‘I am alive, and so is the child. Water, for the love of Mary!’ _Poverina!_ Alone in that dark pit she had borne her first child. On the eighth day we took Marietta and her baby from the _macerie_. It was a boy, stout and strong as a young bull, for we had fed the mother and her milk had not failed. Miracles? Ah, well, that is as one believes. I myself put the two of them on the train for Taormina. There be many rich _forestieri_ at Taormina; I doubt not they have cared for Marietta; they have great charity, those _forestieri_ of Taormina. They have charity, and they understand us a little, those who live among us here in Sicily; they shared our calamity, they knew our people. Some others do not understand, and should not judge. It may be true that this official ran away, that this other was relieved of office for incompetence. This they know, but they do not know the state of mind and body to which those men were reduced. It was better that they fled, for they were not fit to hold positions of responsibility; few of us were; we were too much broken. No one who has not seen Messina, who has not known the survivors, can understand; it was not like a battle, where men go in prepared for death, it was quite another thing!” While the King was at Messina martial law was proclaimed. General Mazza, who was at home on sick leave, left his bed and hurried to Messina to take command of the troops. I asked Bonanno what manner of man the general was; I remember his answer well. “A good man and a brave soldier. He has but one fault, the incurable one: he is sixty-eight years old and out of health besides!” The proclaiming of martial law was a military necessity. The prison at Messina had been destroyed by the earthquake, and the convicts, the scum of Sicily, were at large. From Naples, from Palermo, from all over Italy, the offscouring of the cities raced, like beasts of prey who scent the carnage of battle, to the ruin of Messina, the beautiful. It seemed as if Nature’s cruelty in destroying half a province roused the basest passions in the base, and the noblest in the noble. The soldiers on their rounds at night saw things--desecrations of the helpless dead, offences against nature--that turned them from thoughtless boys to grave men. Here again the Russians, swift to save, swift to punish, terrible in their anger, set the example. A young Russian midshipman, a beautiful boy,--his blue eyes were like ice with fire below, Bonanno said,--found one of the human vultures at work. The midshipman had very little Italian, only a few words; they were enough: “_Ladro!_” he cried and put his pistol to the ruffian’s head, “_condannato a morte_,” and fired.