How different is the incident that I now call to mind. One day we went to a place called Pedreira, and while the sheep were browsing, we jumped from rock to rock, making our voices echo down in the deep ravines. Francisco withdrew, as was his wont, to a hollow among the rocks.
A considerable time had elapsed, when we heard him shouting and crying out to us and to Our Lady. Distressed lest something might have happened to him, we ran in search of him, calling out his name.
“Where are you?”
“Here! Here!”
But it still took us some time before we could locate him. At last, we came upon him, trembling with fright, still on his knees, and so upset that he was unable to rise to his feet.
“What’s wrong? What happened to you?”
In a voice half smothered with fright, he replied: “It was one of those huge beasts that we saw in hell. He was right here breathing out flames!”
I saw nothing, neither did Jacinta, so I laughed and said to him: “You never want to think about Hell, so as not to be afraid.” Indeed when Jacinta appeared particularly moved by the remembrance of hell, he used to say: “Don’t think so much about hell! Think about Our Lord and Our Lady instead. I don’t think about hell, so as not to be afraid.”
He was anything but fearful. He’d go anywhere in the dark alone at night, without the slightest hesitation. He played with lizards, and when he came across snakes he got them to entwine themselves round a stick, and even poured sheep’s milk into the holes in the rocks for them to drink. He went hunting for foxes, holes and rabbit burrows, for genets, and other creatures of the wilds.