Page:Peterson's Magazine 1842, Volume I.pdf/362

. and carried her in safety through some bye streets to a house in the Corso. But few of the sacred community escaped the destruction of their temple. Unit after unit went down before the fury of the French soldiers to complete the score in death's arithmetic, till of the holy group that chaunted the matin hymn, not enough remained to weep a requiem to the souls of their departed brethren.

Leaving the smoking ruins of the monastery of the Augustines, the French troops still pushed forward across the botanic gardens, through the Plaza to the square called the Corso-the sappers and miners blowing the houses from their very foundations.

Night had now closed in, but still the city was kept in twilight darkness by the red glare of the artillery vomiting from its mouth a liquid stream of fire, so continuous was the discharge. The deep low notes of the cannon's universal roar, and the clash of arms, and the neigh and tramp of steeds, with shrieks and groans of the wounded closing the diapason of battle's overture, occasioned a din as deafening as if the very elements themselves were collapsing into chaos. The air, surcharged with a vapor of smoke, sulphur, and putridity from the unburied dead, seemed to pant like a thing of life. At length the combatants on both sides paused at the entrance to the Corso to take breath, and then the full desolation of the scene broke upon their senses.

There is a stupefaction in the melée of the fight, which renders the sensibilities of our nature dead to surrounding horrors ; but should a momentary check ensue, the vision of reality rises in clear perception, and man's better principle revolts from the devastation, which his headlong passion has caused. So it was in that pause of the bloody vortex ; the French opened their ranks as the women and children rushed toward their defenders with outstretched arms. As each case of individual suffering presented itself, a cry of horror burst from the sympathising spectators. One mother hurried past ; the pupil of the eye was glassed and rigid. It seemed as if terror had frozen up the fountain of her tears. Her wild locks waved in the breeze, and then settled in sanguinary collapse upon the dead infant she carried in her bosom.

Another followed, and there was a dreary abstraction in her look, as though she essayed to call some image to her mind and could not. Then she appeared to gaze upon something that was palpable to her view alone, and next her eye fell upon a bundle which she carried in her hand, and she shuddered at the sight.

Last, before the columns closed their ranks, a third rushed by, and she laughed ; but each burst terminated in a scream so long and piercing, that the listeners stopped their ears with their hands, and the boldest spirits preferred the wildest shout of the battle-field to the thrilling cadence of her maniac notes. She, too, carried something ; the light from a burning house showed that it was a portrait. One looked in the face of the bearer, and he said it was the Countess Benita, who had gone mad on hearing that her daughter was shot by the French. We left the Count St. Croix among the ruins of the Church of the Augustines more stunned than injured by the fall of the roof. Consciousness, however, soon returned, and raising himself upon his knees he felt about with his hands for Isandra, to discover if she was yet alive. At length they rested on the cold features of a woman, whose remaining strength had just sufficed to support her to the steps of the altar, where she had breathed her last, whilst he lay in a state of insensibility. Concluding that she was dead, he groped his way in the darkness, stumbling over a confused mass of dead bodies and rubbish, until at length, he effected his exit from the church through the door of the north transept. He then crossed the monks' burying-ground, to the entrance of a street which was at right angles with the great line leading to the Corso, meeting only a few miserable wounded wretches, upon whose features famine and death were graven in deep furrows, dragging themselves along, whilst the breath of life still lingered upon their lips, either to enjoy the poor consolation of resting in death upon consecrated ground ; or perhaps, urged by some cannibal instinct to satisfy the inordinate cravings of hunger with unnatural food, when no hand was near to offer bread. Not daring to keep the open street, lest he might come in contact with such of the inhabitants as still concealed themselves within the ruins of their houses, the French Count, aided by the clear light of the moon, which now sailed from behind the clouds, that had hitherto obscured her brilliancy, still continued his progress along a narrow bye street, at the termination of which he entered a spacious court-yard, one side of which was occupied by the buildings of a large mansion , apparently the residence of some Spanish grandee. The entrance to the lofty hall within was unobstructed, the door having been forced from its hinges, and the fragments of magnificent furniture, antique statuary, and broken vases, which were scattered upon the pavement, sprinkled here and there with dark spots, plainly showed that after a most sanguinary conflict the house had been attacked and taken by the besieging army, but for some cause abandoned with such precipitation, that heaps of valuable property still remained unremoved. Prompted by curiosity to see the more elaborate decorations of this noble fabric, the Count, after surveying the baronial relics of by-gone grandeur, which adorned the walls of the great hall, ascended the staircase, and passed through the reception room into the presence chamber. Melancholy was the picture which this once superb apartment presented. The ancestral tapestry, torn by rude hands, hung in shreds from the walls ; and the