be heard on the distant rampart, where even
yet the French made resistance. At last even this was hushed, but to it
succeeded the far more horrifying sounds of rapine and of murder; the
forked flames of burning houses rose here and there amidst the black
darkness of the night; and through the crackling of the timbers, and the
falling crash of roofs, the heart-rending shriek of women rent the very
air. Officers pressed forward, but in vain were their efforts to restrain
their men; the savage cruelty of the moment knew no bounds of restraint.
More than one gallant fellow perished in his fruitless endeavor to enforce
obedience; and the most awful denunciations were now uttered against those
before whom, at any other time, they dared not mutter.

Thus passed the long night, far more terrible to me than all the dangers of
the storm itself, with all its death and destruction dealing around it. I
know not if I slept: if so, the horrors on every side were pictured in my
dreams; and when the gray dawn was breaking, the cries from the doomed city
were still ringing in my ears. Close around me the scene was still
and silent; the wounded had been removed during the night, but the
thickly-packed dead lay side by side where they fell. It was a fearful
sight to see them as, blood-stained and naked (for already the
camp-followers had stripped the bodies), they covered the entire breach.
From the rampart to the ditch, the ranks lay where they had stood in life.
A faint phosphoric flame flickered above their ghastly corpses, making even
death still more horrible. I was gazing steadfastly, with all that stupid
intensity which imperfect senses and exhausted faculties possess, when the
sound of voices near aroused me.

"Bring him along,--this way, Bob. Over the breach with the scoundrel, into
the fosse."

"He shall die no soldier's death, by Heaven!" cried another and a deeper
voice, "if I lay his skull open with my axe."

"Oh, mercy, mercy! as you hope for--"

"Traitor! don't dare to mutter here!" As the last words were spoken, four
infantry soldiers, reeling from drunkenness, dragged forward a pale and
haggard wretch, whose limbs trailed behind him like those of palsy, his
uniform was that of a French chasseur, but his voice bespoke him English.

"Kneel down there, and die like a man! You were one once!"

"Not so, Bill, never. Fix bayonets, boys! That's right! Now take the word
from me."

"Oh, forgive me! for the love of Heaven,