ction was attributed to the last of the Verone family, whose extinction has been thought to be the penalty of such sacrilegious vandalism. The last Verone died repeating the words, " I miei denari," which his widow (who was still living in 1850) believed to refer to money concealed by him, which she sought in vain to discover. In her possession was a narrative relating to an ancestor of her husband and his escape from the Megano, a natural chasm in the hills above Ravello, commonly supposed to communicate with a vent near Castellammare, on the other side of the mountains, from which issues a stream also bearing the name of Megano. The identity of the name may be the origin of this belief. During the brigandage of the years 1861-3 several people were cast into the Megano, and sheep pastured near have been known to disappear into the abyss, so that it has been found advisable to build up the opening.
The Verone anecdote is as follows " In 1618 banditti infested the mountains of Scala, and so devastated the neighbouring villages that the authorities commanded Giovanni Domenico Verone, Syndic of Pontone, to pursue and arrest the miscreants. The robbers determined to revenge themselves on the Syndic, and waylaid him on the road from Gragnano, lying in ambush among the shrubs that surround the mouth of the Megano. Escape was impossible; but the assail-ants, instead of shooting him, cast him into the abyss, so that his body might not be deposited in consecrated ground. Verone afterwards related that, as he fell, the shaft narrowed until he found himself upon a kind of bridge, beneath which he heard the roar of waters, while above his head the opening revealed the distant sky like a tiny speck of light. After a time he recovered his senses sufficiently to reflect upon the possibility of escape. Almost in despair he climbed up higher, by some small recesses in the rock which afforded an uncertain foothold, and finally reached the entrance. He returned home in the dark night with the fear of death upon him, the only man who has ever returned from the dreaded Megano. A few days later he encountered the same brigands on the way from Scala, and gave himself up for lost. They, however, were so much alarmed at his unexpected appearance that they did not touch him, but fired after his retreating form without effect. Finding later that he had indeed returned, they entered the courtyard of his house one night, and proceeded to force open the door. The aged wife of Verone having heard them, hastened to warn her husband.
Fear not,' he replied 'trust in God, and let us recite our Rosary.' While thus engaged the moon emerged from behind a cloud and lighted up the church of St. Eustace on the rock above, showing the approach of the desired aid. From the churchyard they saw a line of ghostly figures descend the rock-hewn stairs which lead from St, Eustace to the Palazzo Verone; but, robed in white, they appeared to the alarmed couple to be angels from heaven. They silently descended and filled the court, when they proved to be members of a confraternity of Misericordia, who had assisted at a funeral, and were returning home dressed in their white hoods and loose garments. They belaboured the robbers with their staves and put them to flight, and Verone and his wife were saved from certain death."
A grotesque fresco may- still be seen on the wall of the Casa Verone, at Pontone, in which skeletons are beating the robbers with bones ; and several supernatural versions of the above tale, founded upon this picture, are narrated at the present day.
An earlier church, dedicated to Sta. Stefania, sister of St. Eustace, stood on a neighbouring rock, but was blown down in 1852. The grey and yellow designs round the windows, and the decorated tower, greatly resembled the church of Santa Maria di Gradillo at Ravello.
Minuto, on the road leading from Pontone to Scala, is also an outlying part of Scala. It contains a church dedicated to the Annunziata, where the arches of the portico are Saracenic, the marbles having originally been those of an older building