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Updated: June 28, 2025
The last inhabitant of Cellino was out of sight, and it seemed as if they were alone. They waited, Lucia supporting Roderigo's head in her arms. The explosion came, there was a crash, and then a great shaking of the earth. Lucia listened, her eyes flashing. "Wait here," she said to Roderigo, "I will return at once." She ran hurriedly back to the convent and down again to the door.
It was hardly palatial now, but it was very picturesque. It housed five families besides the Rudinis, and in spite of the many lines of wash that floated from its windows, it still retained enough of its old grandeur to be an interesting spot to the occasional tourist who visited Cellino. Maria and her mother were very proud of this distinction.
The man raised his cane again but this time he stopped, because the muzzle of a gun was pressing him between the shoulder blades. Lucia turned to the guard and explained hurriedly. In the starlight she could see that he had a long scar across his face, and she felt very secure. "I know your nephew, Roderigo," she ended, "he helped me blow up the bridge in Cellino." The soldier nodded.
She could make nothing of the orders; they were mostly numbers, and she waited impatiently until he returned to her. "Stay here," he said quickly, "and lie down flat don't move. The Austrians are advancing on the other side of the river, and Cellino will fall if the bridge is not blown up." "But who can get to it?" Lucia demanded. "I can; it is mined. If I can reach it we may drive them back."
The sun rose east of Cellino, and she watched it as it climbed over the hill and lighted the windows of the church with its yellow low rays. All the world looked as if it had just been bathed and freshly clothed to step out glistening and very clean to greet the day. The air was chilly, but so fresh and sweet that Lucia took long grateful breaths of it.
She watched him pull his boat up on shore and then walk swiftly off in the opposite direction from her. She did not know what to do, and she was frightened badly frightened. The broad shining water on one side and the hill on the other seemed to hem her in, and she felt lost. It was not like the mountains of Cellino, where she knew every path. She crouched down by the wall and waited.
The Austrian guns still sounded from across the river, but their range was much farther south. Lucia looked towards the west. None of the guns that were there the night before could be heard. With a throb of joy she realized that the booming now came from the town. "Had the Italians crept up and into Cellino during the night?"
The enemy had retreated beyond, far into the hills, and for the time being Cellino was safe. Lucia guessed as much and smiled to herself. People tiptoed about the room near her, and she could hear their voices indistinctly. She did not try to hear what they said, she was too tired to think.
Old Nana Rudini, her grandmother, was sitting in a low chair beside the table in the low-ceilinged room. Her head nodded drowsily, and the white lace that she was making lay neglected in her lap. Lucia smiled to herself in satisfaction and stole gently away from the window. The Rudinis lived about a mile beyond the north gate of Cellino, an old Italian town built on the summit of a hill.
Roderigo Vicello had only arrived that morning in Cellino, and Lucia was not the familiar little figure to him that she was to the other soldiers. But she was none the less welcome for that, after the monotony of the day, and Roderigo as she came nearer straightened up self-consciously and tilted his black patent leather hat with its rakish cluster of cock feathers a little more to one side.
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