Page:Artabanzanus (Ferrar, 1896).djvu/90

82 and they rushed—oh, how they rushed!—into the thickest of the raging battle.

Destruction now stared us in the face. The panic-stricken negroes continued their wild flight, dragging our carriage over the heaps of slain, and through the long lines of infuriated soldiers. It was impossible to escape a miserable death now, and I calmly resigned myself to my fate. Their almost omnipotent master, notwithstanding all his power to save his precious bones when he pleased, was dashed from his chariot across a broken gun-carriage. The cannon-balls still flew around us in a perfect storm, and the musket-bullets like a tempest of hail. The military vehicle in which I sat, and to which I resolutely clung for bare life, was at last violently wrenched asunder, and I was thrown pell-mell amongst the ruins. Even then I did not lose my senses, but I knew too well that it was necessary to prepare for instant dissolution. Oh! what had I done to deserve this cruel fate? I had always hated war: the sight of two dogs fighting had often been enough to fill me with—I shall not say fear or alarm—but a profound disapproval of what was contrary to my nature. I never fought an earnest battle in my life except once, and that was decided in one round; moral battles I have been fighting all my life.

But now, what was my wretched condition? A last farewell to the dear ones whom I loved was denied me; no watch-dog's honest bark would welcome me when I drew near home; no eye would grow brighter at my coming. The wife of my youth, now the cherished companion of my declining years, my children, my grandchildren, the chattering and laughing, the noisy, innocent, and beautiful little ones, where are they now? Oh, that they might never know how or where I was doomed to die! I should never see my shining silver lakes, or the green fields, or the grand forests, or the golden sunshine again. Never again