There remains one bloody and characteristic episode to Ibrahim’s victory.  The king, says the Arab chronicler, was pious and naturally compassionate, but on this occasion he forgot his usual mildness.  In the midst of fire and blood he ordered the soldiers to search the caverns of the hills, and they dragged forth many prisoners, among whom was the Bishop Procopio.  The king spoke to him gently and nobly, “Because you are wise and old, O Bishop, I exhort you with soft words to obey my advice, and to have foresight for your own safety and that of your companions; otherwise you shall suffer what your fellow-citizens have suffered from me.  If you will embrace my laws, and deny the Christian religion, you shall have the second place after me, and shall be more dear to me than all the Agarenes.”  The prelate only smiled.  Then, full of wrath, the king said:  “Do you smile while you are my prisoner?  Know you not in whose presence you are?” “I smile truly,” came the answer, “because I see you are inspired by a demon who puts these words into your mouth.”  Furious, the king called to his attendants, “Quick, break open his breast, tear out his heart, that we may see and understand the secrets of his mind.”  While the command was being executed, Procopio reproved the king and comforted his companions.  “The tyrant, swollen with rage, and grinding his teeth,” says the narrative, “barbarously offered him the torn-out heart that he might eat it.”  Then he bade them strike off the bishop’s head (who, we are told, was already half dead), and also the heads of his companions, and to burn the bodies all together.  And as St. Pancrazio of old had thrown the holy dragon into the sea, so now were his own ashes scattered to the winds of heaven; and Ibrahim, having accomplished his work, departed.

Some of the citizens, however, had survived, and among them Crisione, the host of St. Elia.  He went to bear the tidings to the saint; and being now assured of the gift of prophecy possessed by the holy man, asked him to foretell his future.  He met the customary fate of the curious in such things.  “I foresee,” said the discomfortable saint, “that within a few days you will die.”  And to make an end of St. Elia with Crisione, let me record here the simple Daniele’s last act of piety to his master.  It is little that in such company he fought with devils, or that after he had written with much labour a beautiful Psalter, the old monk bade him fling it and worldly pride together over the cliff into a lake.  Such episodes belonged to the times; and, after all, by making a circuit of six miles he found the Psalter miraculously unwet, and only his worldly pride remained at the lake’s bottom.  But it was a mind singularly inventive of penance that led the dying saint to charge poor Daniele to bear the corpse on his back a long way over the mountains, merely because, he said, it would be a difficult thing to do.  Other survivors of the sack of Taormina, more fortunate than Crisione, watched