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Updated: September 11, 2025
The speaker was an old man of eighty odd years, a native of Ruscino, one Patrizio Cambi, who was not yet too feeble to cut the rushes and osiers, and maintained a widowed daughter and her young children by that means. "What tale?" said Adone, unwilling to be roused from his own dark thoughts. "What tale, Trizio?" "That they are going to meddle with the river," answered the old man.
When this was announced to Hannibal, he, having more fear of the delay than of the war, sent envoys to say to their princes, "that he wished to confer with them; and that they should either come nearer to Illiberis, or that he would proceed to Ruscino, that their meeting might be facilitated by vicinity: for that he would either be happy to receive them into his camp, or would himself without hesitation come to them: since he had entered Gaul as a friend, and not as an enemy, and would not draw the sword, if the Gauls did not force him, before he came to Italy."
"May I ask how it is that an ecclesiastic of your appearance and your intellect can have been buried so long in such an owls' nest as Ruscino?" "Sir," replied Don Silverio very coldly, "ask my superiors: I am but one of the least of the servants of the Church." "You might be one of her greatest servants, if influence " "I abhor the word influence.
But he was interested in his labours and in his subject, and after several years of work on them, he was able to make out a consecutive history of the Valdedera, and he was satisfied that the peasant of the Terra Vergine had been directly descended from the feudal-lords of Ruscino.
They thought him a saint, because once when at the head of his band, which was then very strong, he had come into Ruscino and done them no harm, but only eaten and drunk, and left a handful of silver pieces to pay for what he and his men had taken.
He said nothing to the women, but when he had stalled and fed his cattle he changed his leathern breeches and put a clean shirt on his back, and went down the twilit fields and across the water to Ruscino; he told his mother that he would sup with Don Silverio.
If it came to any question of conflicting interests, Ruscino and the valley might very likely be powerless, and could only, in any event, be represented by and through San Beda; a strongly ecclesiastical and papal little place, and, therefore, without influence with the ruling powers, and consequently viewed with an evil eye by the Prefecture.
Adone, with an instinct of compassion and delicacy, left her unwatched and went within. "Where did you find that scarecrow?" asked his mother. "Down by the river. She has nobody and nothing. She comes from the mountains." "There are poor folks enough in Ruscino without adding to them from without," said Clelia Alba impatiently. "Mind she does not rob the fowl-house before she slips sway."
Every night the people of Ruscino hung up a lantern on a loophole of the belfry, and another on the parapet of the bridge, that their pastor might not miss his way if he were coming on foot beside the river; and every night Adone himself watched on the river bank or by the town wall, sleepless, longing for, yet dreading that which he should hear.
The great Constantine endeavoured to resuscitate the fallen city, and for a brief space Elne became populous and animated. With other once flourishing seaports it has been gradually isolated from the sea, and the same process is still going on. Just beyond Perpignan a lofty tower, rising amid vineyards and pastures, marks the site of Ruscino, another ancient city and former seaport.
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