recently discharged.

'They fired upon our pickets, general,' said the officer, whose excited
look and voice betrayed how deeply he felt the outrage.

The men were introduced; three ragged, ill-looking wretches, apparently
only roused from intoxication by the terror of their situation, for each
was guarded by a soldier with a drawn bayonet in his hand.

'We only obeyed ordhers, my lord; we only did what the captain tould
us,' cried they, in a miserable, whining tone, for the sight of their
leader in captivity had sapped all their courage.

'What am I here for? who has any business with me?' said Dowall,
assuming before his followers an attempt at his former tone of bully.

'Tell him,' said Serasin, 'that wherever a French general stands in full
command he will neither brook insolence nor insubordination. Let those
fellows be turned out of the town, and warned never to approach the
quarters of the army under any pretence whatever. As for this scoundrel,
we'll make an example of him. Order a _peloton_ into the yard, and shoot
him!'

I rendered this speech into English as the general spoke it, and never
shall I forget the wild scream of the wretch as he heard the sentence.

'I'm an officer in the army of Ireland. I don't belong to ye at all.
You've no power over me. Oh, captain, darlin'; oh, gentlemen, speak for
me! General, dear; general, honey, don't sintince me! don't, for the
love o' God!' and in grovelling terror the miserable creature threw
himself on his knees to beg for mercy.

'Tear off his epaulettes,' cried Serasin; 'never let a French uniform be
so disgraced!'

The soldiers wrenched off the epaulettes at the command, and, not
satisfied with this, they even tore away the lace from the cuffs of the
uniform, which now hung in ragged fragments over his trembling hands.

'Oh, sir! oh, general! oh, gentlemen, have marcy!'

'Away with him,' said Serasin contemptuously; 'it is only the cruel can
be such cowards. Give the fellow his fusillade with blank cartridge,
and, the chances are, fear will kill him outright.'

The scene that ensued is too shocking, too full of abasement, to record;
there was nothing that fear of death, nothing that abject terror could
suggest, that this miserable wretch did not attempt to save his life; he
wept--he begged in accents that were unworthy of all manhood--he kissed
the very ground at the general's feet in his abject sorrow; and when at
last he was dragged from the room, h