Five years after Giovanni Severi had left Rome to join the ill-fated expedition in Africa, his brother Ugo obtained his captaincy and at the same time was placed in charge of the powder magazine at Monteverde, which Sister Giovanna could see in the distance from her latticed window.

The post was of considerable importance, but was not coveted because it required the officer who held it to live at a considerable distance from the city, with no means of getting into town which he could not provide for himself; for there is no tramway leading down the right bank of the Tiber.

The magazine was actually guarded by a small detachment of artillery under two subalterns who took the night duty by turns, and both officers and men were relieved at regular intervals by others; but the captain in command held his post permanently and lived in a little house by himself, a stone's throw from the gate of the large walled enclosure in which the low buildings stood.

For some time it had been intended to build a small residence for the officer in charge, but this had not been begun at the date from which I now take up my story.
The neighbourhood is a lonely one, but there are farm-houses scattered about at varying distances from the high-road which follows the river, mostly in the neighbourhood of the hill that bears the name of Monteverde and seems to have been the site of a villa in which Julius Caesar entertained Cleopatra.
As every one will understand, Ugo Severi's duties consisted in keeping an account of the ammunition and explosives deposited in the vaults of the magazine and in exercising the utmost vigilance against fire and other accidents.

The rule against smoking, for instance, did not apply outside the enclosure, but Ugo gave up cigarettes, even in his own house, as soon as he was appointed to the post, and took care that every one should know that he had done so.
He was a hard-working, hard-reading, rather melancholic man who had never cared much for society and preferred solitude to a club; a fair man, with the face of a student and not over robust, but nevertheless energetic and determined where his duty was concerned.