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 their opportunity, and, at a moment when the garrison was weak,
entered, seized the place, fortified it anew, and offered it to the
Greek emperor once more. He could not maintain war with the Saracens,
but by a treaty made with them he secured his faithful Taorminians in
the possession of the city. After forty years of peace under this treaty
it was again besieged for several months, and fell on Christmas night.
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