The Ambassador had cut another strand of the red tape that strangles Italy. Permission to fly the Red Cross flag had been asked and refused because none of the party belonged to the Italian Society, though several were members of the American Association. When in order to overcome this objection the leaders asked leave to join the Italian Red Cross, the answer was that it would take two weeks for them to be elected. Mr. Griscom passed over the refusal and carried the request to a higher court, where it was granted. My last impression of the “Bayern” was that scene in the saloon, where Thompson and J. stood patiently cutting out the red cloth crosses and the trained nurses sat stitching them neatly on the ivory cloth bands. At two o’clock Mrs. Griscom and the ladies of her auxiliary committee left the ship and took the train for Rome with Mr. Parrish and Mr. Page. “Of course I wanted to go to Messina,” said Mr. Parrish, “but somebody had to stay in Rome to attend to this end of the business!” At four o’clock the “Bayern” sailed, [Illustration: STROMBOLI FROM THE “BAYERN.” _Page 121._] [Illustration: THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR AND RED CROSS NURSES ON “THE BAYERN.” _Page 114._] [Illustration: MESSINA. ITALIAN MILITARY ENCAMPMENT. _Page 54._] [Illustration: MESSINA. ITALIAN OFFICERS AND MEN. _Page 54._] Captain Belknap having commandeered three small craft against the need of landing on an open beach, for which the ship’s boats were unsuitable. As she sailed out of the harbor of Civitavecchia, past the old lighthouse with the two defending towers, the “Bayern” flew the American ensign at the fore, the German merchant flag aft, and between foremast and funnel on the triatic stay the flag of the whole Christian world, a cross vermilion on a ground white. IV THE CRUISE OF THE “BAYERN” “It looks as if God had put His foot upon it!” said Hugh, the Yeoman. J., watching the pallid sunset from the deck of the “Bayern,” as she swung at anchor in the sickle-shaped harbor of Messina, turned from the sombre Sicilian mountains, rising tier above tier to the wet gray sky, and looked at what men called the “indispensable city” before God had set His foot upon it. The pile of smoking ruins, in some places tall as the wrecked buildings had originally been, in others crushed flat to the earth, looked indeed as if some mighty being had stamped his way with giant strides over the city; you could trace his footsteps in the shattered remnants of the great Sicilian seaport. “Do you believe the earthquake was a judgment?” Hugh went on.