The young girl ran past the corner. A Zouave was running
before her towards the gate of the barrack where a sentinel stood
motionless under the lamp, his gray hood drawn over his head and
his rifle erect by his shoulder.
At that instant a terrific explosion rent the air, followed a
moment later by the dull crash of falling fragments of masonry,
and then by a long thundering, rumbling sound, dreadful to hear,
which lasted several minutes, as the ruins continued to fall in,
heaps upon heaps, sending immense clouds of thick dust up into the
night air. Then all was still.
The little piazza before San Spirito in Sassia was half filled
with masses of stone and brickwork and crumbling mortar. A young
girl lay motionless upon her face at the corner of the hospital,
her white hands stretched out towards the man who lay dead but a
few feet before her, crushed under a great irregular mound of
stones and rubbish. Beneath the central heap where the barracks
had stood lay the bodies of the poor Zouaves, deep buried in wreck
of the main building, the greater part of which had fallen across
the side street that passes between the Penitenzieri and the
Serristori. All was still for many minutes, while the soft light
streamed from the high windows of the hospital and faintly
illuminated some portion of the hideous scene.
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