their number rolling on the ground and
shrieking in agony.

Hastening to his assistance, I found that he had received a severe flesh
wound in the thigh. I carried him into a house that seemed pretty well
protected from the fire, dressed his wound, and left him in charge of
the inmates, who, although terribly frightened, were kind and
sympathetic.

Proceeding through the marketplace, I observed a little girl crouching
in a doorway, her face as pale as if she were dead, her lips perfectly
white, and an expression of extreme horror in her eyes. I should
probably have passed her, for even in that short sharp walk I had
already seen so many faces expressing terror that I had ceased to think
of stopping, but I observed a stream of blood on her light-coloured
dress.

Stooping down, I asked--

"Are you hurt, dear?"

Twice I repeated the question before she appeared to understand me;
then, raising a pair of large lustrous but tearless eyes to my face, she
uttered the single word "Father," and pointed to something that lay in
the gloom of the passage beyond her. I entered, lifted the corner of a
piece of coarse canvas, and under it saw the form of a man, but there
was no countenance. His head had been completely shattered by a shell.
Replacing the canvas, I returned to the child. Her right hand was
thrust into her bosom, and as she held it there in an unnatural
position, I suspected something, and drew it gently out. I was right.
It had been struck, and the middle finger was hanging by a piece of
skin. A mere touch of my knife was sufficient to sever it. As I
bandaged the stump, I tried to console the poor child. She did not
appear to care for the pain I unavoidably caused her, but remained quite
still, only saying now and then, in a low voice, "Father," as she looked
with her tearless eyes at the heap that lay in the passage.

Giving this hapless little one in charge of a woman who seemed to be an
inhabitant of the same building, I hurried away, but had not gone a
hundred yards when I chanced to meet Nicholas.

"Ha! well met, my boy!" he exclaimed, evidently in a state of suppressed
excitement; "come along. I expected to have had a long hunt after you,
but fortune favours me, and we have not a moment to lose."

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Just think," he said, seizing my arm and hurrying me along, but taking
no heed of my question; "we are fairly over the Danube in force! The
night before last three