d 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.

'He is alive!' he exclaimed. 'He moved his head!'

Before he had finished speaking the man was on his knees beside
Giovanni, tearing open his tunic and his shirt to listen for the
beating of his heart. It was faint but audible. Giovanni Severi was
not dead yet, and a few moments later his artillerymen were carrying
him down the hill towards the road, his injured arm swinging like a
rag at his side.

They did not wait for orders; there were a number of carriages still
in the road and the men had no idea where their superiors might be.
Their first thought was to get Giovanni conveyed to a hospital as soon
as possible.

'We must take him to the White Sisters,' said the eldest of them.
'That is where his brother was so long.'

The others assented readily enough; and finding an empty cab in the
road, they lifted the wounded officer into it and pulled up the hood
against the rain, whilst two of them crept in under it, telling the
cabman where to go.

In less than a quarter of an hour the cab stopped before the hospital
of the White Sisters, and when the portress opened the door,