nd to take measures to amend it. Several
shot struck the hospital; and some shells falling through the roof,
exploded in the very wards where the sick lay. The unhappy Jew, Lazaro,
lying in a feverish and semi-delirious state from his former hurt and
agitation, was again struck by a splinter of a shell which burst in the
ward where the Major's care had seen him deposited, blowing up the
ceiling and part of the wall. In the midst of the confusion, the Jew,
frantic with terror, rushed unrestrained from the building, followed
only by his daughter, who was watching by his bed. He was not missed
for some time, and the attempts to discover him, made after his
disappearance became known, were of no avail. A neighbouring sentry had
seen a white figure, followed by another crying after it, dash across
the road and disappear in the bushes; but the search made about the
vicinity of the spot failed in detecting any traces of them, and those
who troubled themselves to think of the matter at all, surmised that
they had fallen into the sea.

CHAPTER V.

For some pages, my grandfather's note-book is filled with memoranda of
singular casualties from the enemy's shot, wonderful escapes, and hasty
moments of quietude and attempted comfort snatched "even in the cannon's
mouth." The fire from the Spanish batteries shortly reduced the town to
ruins, and the gunboats at night precluded all hope of peace and
oblivion after the horrors of the day. Dreams, in which these horrors
were reproduced, were interrupted by still more frightful nocturnal
realities. One of the curious minor evils that my grandfather notices,
as resulting from an incessant cannonade, to those not engaged in it
actively enough to withdraw their attention from the noise, is the
extreme irritation produced by its long continuance, amounting, in
persons of nervous and excitable temperament, to positive exasperation.

Some of the numerous incidents he chronicles are also recorded by
Drinkwater, especially that of a man who recovered after being almost
knocked to pieces by the bursting of a shell. "His head was terribly
fractured, his left arm broken in two places, one of his legs shattered,
the skin and muscles torn off his right hand, the middle finger broken
to pieces, and his whole body most severely bruised and marked with
gunpowder. He presented so horrid an object to the surgeons, that they
had not the smallest hopes of saving his life, and were at a loss what
part t