Comacchio. Garibaldi lingers in the marshy areas, slowed down by his wife Anita, who is six months pregnant and ill. He and Captain Giovanni Battista Culiolo are rescued by a villager, who shelters them in a hut. Culiolo then has the incredible fortune of meeting Giovanni Nino Bonnet, brother of Gaetano, a volunteer from Comacchio who had fought at Villa Corsini and who himself was already an acquaintance of Garibaldi. Thus begins the “trafila”: the escape, lasting fourteen days, which allows the Romagna patriots to rescue the general, saving him from the Austrians’ pursuit. Bonnet first convinces the fugitives to move from the hut.
