The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-01-01

f@MMZEEFk AND thereF said the Abbate Lotre1li to
 the swarthy captain of the swift felucca,
 H "there by those three tall cypressesE
 His delicate white hand pointed across
 < ]" 5 : 5: ]: ;" :: = = <: 5 5" ;" .E8ASS SSH the noon-mad three pointed M&8kA shapes that stood like ragged iron lance H8 %&W heads against the star-strewn sky. A HAA&TM day and a night from Tuns in this $ corsair craft and the Abbate was (4 E once close to his native town &-mESs& romantic Scyla, set high upon the ex-
 <g3Hs trerne mainland of Italy the Strait of
 Gg Messina The sharp prow of the feucca
 ran with a gentle shock into the gravel of
 the shore
 s1Czood-by" my friend" said the Abbate in a low voice. and shook the hand of the darskinned skipper Then he descended the plank sailor had flung from deck s sand He carried parcel which seemed heavy and was wrapped leather The barbarous mariners saw .,.eir strange silent passenger kneel the strand; it shone like stretch of silver in the moon fight He buried his hands in the sand and bent 1ow as though to kiss it
 Cordzge creaked in the puTleys, the great sweeps zroaned their locks, and the felucca, resetting her red sais glided like bird through the night The Abbate Lotre1i arose his hat in his hand. His pale sustere and handsome face showed like marble above his black travelling cloak; his dark hair made his features paler still It was the strange mystic hour of universal hush sst before dawn, that hour when the giant energies of nature seem for moment to flag, when there is sudden pause in her respiration and the unborn day SasEers trernbes upon the threshold of Time The siIence full of awe; the stars were like the pas sioless eyes of the gods looking serenely down The Abbate stood stl1 his back the tine mystery of this morning and the significance of his here overnastered him On his right hidden by the rising wood lay his native village Three years had passed since last he had it The road lay like argent river the lunar light. Through the Abbates mind rushed this oft-recurrent thought:
 -|T will swiftly make my way the Church of Our Lady, open the door of the sacrisy with my key, and leave the upon the tiny altar there. Satu1lo sexton will then find it when he to ring for the first No is about-no one will see me now-no one will see me again"
 Before him the Three Virgins-so the peasants called those slender Beyond them the crest line of a hill was visible, from which the old Roman ruin he knew well since boyhood days loomed into the sky To his left lay the moon-decked Medit- the strait he Sicily the beacons of Messina with their tossing cresset 6res and faint and far and ghostly the towering white pyramid of Mount Aetna. Opposite Scylla on the Scian shore the sinister headland of Charybds drowned. Between these cliffs at the changing of the tides how1ed and roared the shipengulhng whirlpools that smote the hearts of ancient mariners with dread The waters of the blue Mediterranean and those of the green Tyrrhenian Sea- charging through the strait, met here in hideous foaming frays.
 A hint of the dawn the The Abbate Lor ascended the road that led into the main street eK the elevated village ScylIa, gray and old with it's three thousand souls, built compact1y the top ot the cli close to its brink AS he climbed toward the town thoughts deep and strange the priest He felt his reso1ute soul quail under the onslaught of dear and treasured memories poignant with pictures of the past On the way the church of which he the head, he would pass by the house where Rosa1ia dwe1t when he first knew and loved heT-ere he became priest and she the wife of another Farther stood the house where Rosa1ia now lived with her criminal husband Vincenzo Paea1o and their angelic little daughter Giua. Then his mothers house-a mist his eyes; and then his church; relen!css fingers of iron clutched his heart He knew every house in the place and the inhabitants of every house Once they all knew and loved him now doubt, they hated had forgotten him. Truly great reason they had to hate him. Did they but know he approaching, they might issue from their doors and stone him. Yet some would feel compassion in their hearts; he knew them well; they his children-once
 Walking in the dense shadows of the wood the Abbzte Lotrer plunged in dark dreams, neared the top the road which thence sloped slightly downward into the town. His eyes hungry for glimpse of the beloved towers streets and houses He reached the highest point of the road An inarticuate cry broke dreadfuy from his lips He swayed dizziy, then suddenly down upon a prostrate tree trunk He passed his over his bewi1dered eyes and looked about him like rudey aroused from deep slunber. The shattered Roman ruin the neighboring hill caught his eye Across his features swept gust of horror The stee1y transparency of the dawn slowly ascended the heavens behind the his and in this spectral light mingled with the moons, stood revealed of mighty desolation.
 Sweeping sharply downward from the edge of the 6<olzen road the earth s1oped in a tremendous bottom of a hollow and then upward the opposite brink of the chasm. The sides of the gulf ran evenly around like crescent-sl1aped amphi- theatre and it's bottom pitched steepy toward the IL was as though some internal god with one stroke of gigantic spade had down the top of the bluff which Scyl1a stood and flung it into the Mediter- Dying trees with naked roots and tottering elunG A edges of the pit, boulders uptorr, newly exposed earth; spring loosed from the rock wound seaward in track of yellow clay. The strata of and hillside lay open like raw wound Deep trenches and grooves had been poughed