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a jettatore 71
learned to believe in the evil eye. The workingmen
must be more careful. It was their own fault if they
got into trouble.
And ballast-cars upset; the engines exploded.
One morning it was whispered that the engineer
was gone. He had vanished ; no one knew what had
become of him. Had some one stabbed him ? No,
indeed, would any one have dared to stab a jettatore ?
But he had actually vanished, and no one saw
anything more of him.
It was a few years afterwards that Donna Micaela
began to think of building her railroad. And to
procure money for it, she wanted to hold a bazar in
the great Franciscan monastery outside Diamante.
Out there is a cloister yard surrounded by fine old
pillars. Under the arcades Donna Micaela arranged
quaint little shops and lotteries, and tiny places of
amusement. She hung garlands of Venetian
lanterns from pillar to pillar. She piled up great
barrels of Etna wine around the monastery well.
While Donna Micaela was at work there, she often
conversed with the little Gandolfo, who had become
keeper of the monastery after Fra Felice was dead.
One day she let Gandolfo show her the whole
monastery. She went all through it, from attic to
cellar. And as she beheld the countless little cells
with their grated windows, lime-plastered walls and
hard wooden benches, an idea occurred to her.
She begged Gandolfo to shut her up in one of the
cells and leave her there for five minutes.
" Now I am a prisoner," she said, when she was
left alone. She felt the door: she felt the window.
She was securely barred up.
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