Gasperone, the Messinese, shook the rough mane of hair out of his eyes and parried the question with a “_Chi lo sa?_” Then he added: “It was foretold; I myself heard the prophecy, though at the time I laughed, with others who laugh no more. One of the hottest days of last summer a tall Nazarene, a hermit from the hills dressed in sackcloth, went up and down the city, followed by a boy--half naked like himself--ringing a great bell. There on the Marina they stopped at a cross street and the Nazarene cried out like one possessed: “‘Be warned! Take heed and repent, ye of Messina! This year shall not end before your city is utterly destroyed!’” “It was a wicked city,” said Hugh; “the Almighty smote this place. What else could ha’ done it? Our chart called for fifty fathom of water, we plumbed and plumbed--two hundred and fifty didn’t fetch it, the bottom had just dropped out. There’s Riggio ‘crost the straits, hit the same way--a double stroke you may say. When you see a city smote like that, you may know it was a wicked city; ’twas the same with ‘Frisco--she got what she deserved. Down to Callao centuries ago ‘twas the same. The people were fighting and killing each other, so the Almighty he shook down the town and out of the water a great high mountain riz right up in the air carrying a big ship as was lying in the harbor with it; I know folks as has seen it! They put an immense cross on the spot; the kings or presidents or whatever there is down there, swore that until that cross was pulled down they would never fight no more. Whenever they’re like to quarrel, some one points to that cross, and then they manage to settle the row without bloodshed!” “_Awe ri’_,” said Gasperone. “They say a vile piece of poetry was printed in an infidel paper, asking our Saviour to prove He could work miracles by sending a good earthquake--is that true?” Gasperone spat over the side and nodded; then he too prophesied. “There is more to come.” Gasperone shook a warning finger: “Listen! la Sicilia will go down, down, and finally be lost under the sea. Already it has begun; the mountains grow lower and lower; when I was a boy they were much higher than now. The Marina has sunk in some places a metre. You know the ancient _stemma_, the coat-of-arms of Sicily, has but three legs? We have lost one leg, there are but two left. When the next leg goes, it will be finished; the island will topple and sink beneath the sea. I have said it.” He made a gesture as if to wipe the ancient island of Trinacria from the face of the globe. It was the third day of the cruise of the “Bayern;” all the relief party were on shore, except Wilfred Thompson and J., who had been detained on board by their work. J., who had come up from the hold to take a breath, listened half consciously to the talk of Gasperone and Hugh, the Yeoman. In his confused memories of that time this scrap of their conversation survives.