Rooch is a little farmhouse perched above a few small fields which lie terraced against the hillside, and form a small, light clearing among the surrounding woods. The stable, a room above it, a small portico in front of the stable, a cistern under the portico--that is all. The little portico is just above the narrow paved way that passes some two or three metres below. It is only a few steps from the comb of the ravine of Val Malghera, to Rooch. Having reached the comb, Franco heard low voices in the farmhouse.
He paused and drawing aside, stretched himself, face downwards, upon the grass, beyond the path, and near a cluster of low chestnut trees. The voices became silent, but he heard a man's steps coming rapidly towards him; he lay quite still, holding his breath. The man stopped almost at his side, waited a moment, and then slowly retraced his steps, saying in a loud voice, with a foreign accent: "There is no one here, it must have been a fox."
The guards! A long silence followed, during which Franco did not dare to move. The guards once more began to talk, and he decided to crawl noiselessly backwards, to drop down into Val Malghera and pass behind and above the house. Slowly, very slowly he pulled off his boots. He was about to move when he heard two or three guards leave the farmhouse, talking as they came towards him. He heard one of them say: "Is no one going to stay here?" and another answered: "It is not necessary."
Four guards brushed past him without noticing him. They certainly had no suspicions, for they were talking unconcernedly. One was saying that a person may remain ten minutes under water without drowning; but another maintained that five minutes is long enough to cause death. The fourth passed him in silence, but hardly had he done so when he stopped. Franco shuddered upon hearing him strike a match. He lit his pipe, puffed at it two or three times, and then called out to his companions in a loud voice, for they had already gone some way down the slope of Val Malghera.
One of the others answered, louder still:
Then the fourth guard puffed twice more and started forward. Three years and one month! Maria's age! Franco, lying on his face, raised himself upon his elbows, clutching convulsively at the grass. The noise of the steps died away down below in Val Malghera.