The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-01-01

into the ground by the avalanche of p1unging rock. Of habitations trace remained; the catacysm had
 made void in the landscape and borne away all signs of human existence Scylla with all it's people had perished utterly from the earth; it though it had never been; it's very site eterna1ly erased from the eyes of men,
 The salow disk of the moon faded away; the indigo of the turned a clearer blue after left the skies. flock of swallows winging south whirled by overhead. The Abbate Lotrelh as one stricken the life. Then his benumbed brain like beam of revelation, shot the remembrance of vague tdings brought into Tunis by a French missionary who seeking a companion to go with him to the battefie1ds of Abyssria- This had spoken of Italian town which, with all its inhabitants, had been swept into the by earthduake. Its he did not know. Stunned and stupefed. the Abbate duly surveyed the surrounding landscape. There stood the crumbng edihce of Roman days, grim in the dawn1ight the strait Charyb dis lifted its threatening head. The young priest overwhelmed by the realization of something vast for human mind grasp once; he was crushed by grief too great to be contained wholly in one human heart A groan burst from him and he buried his face in his hands Upon his knees rested the parcel wrapped in leather.
 ocean tt,rnultuous emotions engulfed his sou1 a thousand agonzing memories crowded upon his mind Now he stood than alone amid mankind, the victim of colossal bereavement, the martyr of a mighty rennciaton By this dread judgment he stood exalted suddenly the 1oftest eminence of tragic isolation, cut off at stroke from all that makes fife dear and which his religion had caused him utterly to renounce. For the first time he felt in all it's intensity the absolute tyrannous power of ties and associations of the claim of the natal earth links of social love Thirty-four of his hirtyseven years had been rooted fast in Scyla Alp but intensified his love for the place and the people By one terrible clash of the shears of Fate he stood s1ndered all ties with the past; that part of his life seemed though it had been, records and its results expunged in the foods No man had been deeply concerned in the affairs of the community the Abbate Lotreli. In the bitter ness of exile he had realized that his fife would remain inextricaby bound up with the three thousand he kreuy intir1 Iv of S0ul saved, the French missionary had said Therefore he was doomed henceforth wander alone in the world an nefaceab1e brand upon his brow bear till death the overwhelming and tremendous burden of memories that could share with him. He as the solitary survivor would be the sole repository of the life stories of the thousands he Enewwhat they had done and thought and suferedyea the fact that they had ever lived known to him alone The dark secrets of the confessional that lay entombed in his bosom were the secrets of the vertically dead. The " catastrophe released him from every link with the former days; rendered null his errand hther and futile his great sacrifice of three years ago and his intended offering of to-day. The known consequences Of his actions, good and evil, naught. He stood bereft of all antecedents alone alone.
 His dark eyes in which desoate light now srnou- dered wandered 1ist1ess1y out across the sea, still vergng into richer dyes of blue. Deep under those restless surges Scyna lay in ruins and all its three thousand hearts cold and still Rosa1ia, for whom he had taken infamy his head, rested there with Vincenzo-whom she so 1oved-in everlasting sleep His old mother, too, locked in that deep tomb of water her lips would bless him again; his play fellows old there and the townspeop1e their wives and chi1dren-oh, the many sweet and happy children that always to meet him in the streetsl Rosa1ia's child the little Gulia he 1oved-her bright eyes were closed in the deep and the brine in her baby The pretty cottages filled with happiness the public buildings and the spangled gardens now ay broken and chaotic heap of monstrous confusion in black profounds where the whirpoo1s raved and spun His loved church with its graceful canpa- nile, marbles, mosaics and paintings, where it now? Were its bells swinging to the currents in the deep pealrg requiem to the shattered village people in the oceans ooze? As though it had been yesterday before him that awful bright morning when Rosalia to him with terror wrth- ing in her lovely countenance. Her words rang in his again:
 "Vincenzo. my husband. last night stole the sacred vessels from the sanctuary. He sold them to Tunis- ian merchant who sailed this morning. Death and de struction will fall upon V1ncenzo took also the golden monstrance which the great Pope Sxtus the Fifth gave to church so long ago Oh, Paoo Lo- tre1li defend us from the of God and the 1awl If Vncenzo be discovered he will be hanged. Oh, Pao1o, him for the love you once bore me-for the love you bear my little Giuia! If Vncenzo be taken I shall die I love him still beyond all telling If he be taken-I shall die.'
 Again he the beautiful she sank the marble floor. again he felt the clasp of her bout his knees Her agony that had been terrible then-the memory of it terrible now He recalled his own hollow voice he had risen and said:
 Say nothing do nothing-leave all to me-
 Then followed fierce combats with his heart and soul arrayed in But the fateful truth rose tr:.surhant-1cve s:scA hS still bore be word any one, without a farewell kiss from his mother with all the evidence of guilty haste left behind him, he had crossed Messina and taken the packet for Tunis. For months he had wandered among