which the progress of a battle never fails
to awaken, and now excited to phrensy by the exultation of success,
pressed on after the affrighted fugitives, who trampled one upon
another, or fell pierced with the weapons of their assailants, filling
the air with their cries of agony and their shrieks of terror. The
horrors of the scene, far from allaying, only excited still more the
ferocity of their bloodthirsty foes, and they pressed steadily and
fiercely on, hour after hour, in their dreadful work of destruction. It
was one of those scenes of horror and woe such as those who have not
witnessed them can not conceive of, and those who have witnessed can
never forget.

[Sidenote: Pompey's flight to the camp.]
[Sidenote: Pompey in his tent.]
[Sidenote: His consternation and despair.]

When Pompey perceived that all was lost, he fled from the field in a
state of the wildest excitement and consternation. His troops were
flying in all directions, some toward the camp, vainly hoping to find
refuge there, and others in various other quarters, wherever they saw
the readiest hope of escape from their merciless pursuers. Pompey
himself fled instinctively toward the camp. As he passed the guards at
the gate where he entered, he commanded them, in his agitation and
terror, to defend the gate against the coming enemy, saying that he was
going to the other gates to attend to the defenses there. He then
hurried on, but a full sense of the helplessness and hopelessness of his
condition soon overwhelmed him; he gave up all thought of defense, and,
passing with a sinking heart through the scene of consternation and
confusion which reigned every where within the encampment, he sought
his own tent, and, rushing into it, sank down, amid the luxury and
splendor which had been arranged to do honor to his anticipated victory,
in a state of utter stupefaction and despair.

CHAPTER VIII.

FLIGHT AND DEATH OF POMPEY.

[Sidenote: Pursuit of the vanquished.]
[Sidenote: Pompey recovers himself.]

Caesar pursued the discomfited and flying bodies of Pompey's army to the
camp. They made a brief stand upon the ramparts and at the gates in a
vain and fruitless struggle against the tide of victory which they soon
perceived must fully overwhelm them. They gave way continually here and
there along the lines of intrenchment, and column after column of
Caesar's followers broke through into the camp. Pompey, hearing from his
tent the increasing noi