The White Sister

by F. Marion Crawford

The three darted away across the open space that lay between the central building and the guard-house. Giovanni ran, too, but not away from the danger. There were sentries stationed at intervals all round the outer wall, as round the walls of a prison, and they would have little chance of life if they remained at their posts. Giovanni ran like a deer, but even so he lost many seconds in giving his orders to each sentinel, to run straight for the open fields to the nearest cottages and to give warning. The astonished sentinels obeyed instantly, and Giovanni ran on. He reached the very last just too late; at that moment the thunder of the explosion rent the air. He felt the earth rock and was thrown violently to the ground; then something struck his right arm and shoulder, pinning him down; he closed his eyes and was beyond hearing or feeling.

Within three-quarters of an hour the road to Monteverde was thronged with vehicles of all sorts and with crowds of people on foot. The nature of the disaster had been understood at once by the soldiery, and the explanation had spread among the people, rousing that strange mixture of curiosity and horror that draws the common throng to the scene of every accident or crime. But amongst the very first the King was on the spot with half-a-dozen superior officers, and in the briefest possible time the search for dead and wounded began. The story of Giovanni's splendid presence of mind and heroic courage ran from mouth to mouth. The junior officers and the men whom he had sent in all directions came in and reported themselves to the officer who had taken charge of everything for the time being. Only one man was missing—only one man and Giovanni himself. A few casualties amongst the peasants were reported, but not a life had been lost and hardly a bone was broken. Yet Giovanni was missing.

With the confidence of men who understood that the magazine must have been so entirely destroyed at once as to annihilate all further danger in an instant, the searchers went up to the ruin of the outer wall and peered into the great dusty pit out of which the foundations of the magazine had been hurled hundreds of feet into the air. Something of the outline of the enclosure could still be traced, and the sentinels whom Giovanni had warned from their post had already told their story. They found, too, that the missing man himself had been one of the sentries, and the inference was clear: their commanding officer had been killed before he had reached the last post.

For a long time they searched in vain. Great masses of masonry had shot through the outer wall and had rolled on or been stopped by the inequalities of the ground. Most of the wall itself was fallen and its direction could only be traced by a heap of ruins. Twilight had turned to darkness, and the search grew more and more difficult as a fine rain began to fall. Below, the multitude was already ebbing back to Rome; it was dark, it was wet, hardly any one had been hurt, and there was nothing to see: the best thing to be done was to go home.

It was late when a squad of four artillerymen heard a low moan that came from under a heap of stones close by them. In an instant they were at work with the pickaxes and spades they had borrowed from the peasants' houses, foreseeing what their work would be. From time to time they paused a moment and listened. Before long they recognised their comrade's voice.

'Easy, brothers! Don't crack my skull with your pickaxes, for Heaven's sake!'

'Is the Captain there?' asked one of the men.

'Dead,' answered the prisoner. 'He was warning me when we were knocked down together. Make haste, but for goodness' sake be careful!'

They were trained men and they did their work quickly and well. What had happened was this. The heavy and irregular mass of masonry that had pinned Giovanni to the ground by his arm had helped to make a sort of shelter, across which a piece of the outer wall had fallen without breaking, followed by a mass of rubbish. By what seemed almost a miracle to the soldiers, their companion was entirely unhurt, and no part of the officer's body had been touched except the arm that lay crushed beneath the stones.

They cleared away the rubbish and looked at him as he lay on his back pale and motionless under the light of their lanterns. They knew what he had done now; they understood that of them all he was the hero. One of the men took off his cap reverently, and immediately the others followed his example, and so they all stood for a few moments looking at him in silence and in deference to his brave deeds. Then they set to work in silence to move the heavy block of broken masonry that had felled him, and their comrade helped them too, though he was stiff and bruised and dazed from the terrific shock. As the mass yielded at last before their strength and rolled away, one of the men uttered a cry.