Peter's chain had been fastened;
and he uncovered a spring of water, in the middle of the stone floor,
which he told us had miraculously gushed up to enable the Saint to
baptize his jailor. The miracle was perhaps the more easily wrought,
inasmuch as Jugurtha had found the floor of the dungeon oozy with wet.
However, it is best to be as simple and childlike as we can in these
matters; and whether St. Peter stamped his visage into the stone, and
wrought this other miracle or no, and whether or no he ever was in the
prison at all, still the belief of a thousand years and more, gives a
sort of reality and substance to such traditions. The custode dipped an
iron ladle into the miraculous water, and we each of us drank a sip;
and, what is very, remarkable, to me it seemed hard water and almost
brackish, while many persons think it the sweetest in Rome. I suspect
that St. Peter still dabbles in this water, and tempers its qualities
according to the faith of those who drink it.
* * * * *
=_William Gilmore Simms, 1806-1870._= (Manual, pp. 490, 510.)
From "Eutaw, a Sequel to The Foragers."
=_303._= THE BATTLE OF EUTAW.
Up to this moment nothing had seemed more certain than the victory of
the Americans.
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