Lucia had said that in October there would be a miracle. For the September apparition, a huge crowd had gathered at the Cova. One witness, Monsignor John Quaresma, Vicar General of the diocese of Leiria, at that time, said:
The September Vision: Word of the September vision and the promise of a miracle for October the 13th, spread throughout the whole of Portugal.
Never before had a miracle been so obligingly pinpointed on the calendar, with the month, the day and the very hour so precisely predicted.
The main Lisbon newspaper, O Seculo, sent a reporter. Avelino de Almeida, a celebrated Lisbon journalist, published a humorous article in the O Seculo, in which he skilfully lampooned the whole affair of the apparitions and any future miracle. Because his newspaper was the most widely circulated in the nation, he did much to advertise the scheduled miracle and to bring both the sceptics and the faithful to Cova da Iria for October 13.
Sceptics found the whole buildup of expectations for a miracle not only amusing, but a great opportunity to discredit the Catholic Church - the Church would be shown to be based on nothing but centuries of superstition.
The weight of these expectations bore down on Lucia's family and friends as Maria dos Anjos, Lucia's niece recounts:
We kept hearing reports that if the miracle was a failure. our house would be bombed. We were terror-stricken, and our neighbours believed it, too. In our fears it seems that we believed everything, and everyone, but Lucia.
"If it is really our Lady," my mother said, "there could have been a miracle already. She could have made a spring come up, or something like that. But, no... even when it rains in that place there is no more than a drop of water. Where will all of it end?"
The rain dampens the expectations of the crowd.
In the morning of October 13, in the pouring rain, crowds surrounded the children, who had to be brought to the site by car. Some estimate the number of witnesses to the miracle to be between 50,000 and 100,000 people. The local troops who were sent to stop the crowd were completely outnumbered by the visiting crowds.
The rain clears and the crowd starts to look in the sky.
No-one had seen such crowds. There was no means of estimating the numbers. A reporter from the paper, Diario de Noticias, dutifully counted 240 carts, 135 bicycles and 100 cars that returned from Fatima to Vila Nova de Ourem. Since cars were rare in those days, and walking the normal mode of transport, the figures suggest that it was a great crowd, a national event
