closed the passage. This had been concealed from our
view by the smoke and flame; and now, as the press of men from behind
grew each instant more powerful, a scene of terrible suffering ensued.
The enemy, too, poured down a deadly discharge, and grapeshot tore
through us at pistol-range. The onward rush of the columns to the rear
defied retreat, and in the mad confusion, all orders and command were
unheard or unheeded. Not knowing what delayed our advance, I was busily
engaged in suppressing a fire at one of the middle buttresses, when,
mounting the parapet, I saw the cause of our halt. I happened to have
caught up one of the pitched torches at the instant, and the thought at
once struck me how to employ it. To reach the portcullis, no other road
lay open than the parapet itself--a wooden railing, wide enough for a
footing, but exposed to the whole fire of the houses. There was little
time for the choice of alternatives, even had our fate offered any, so I
dashed on, and, as the balls whizzed and whistled around me, reached the
front.

It was a terrible thing to touch the timbers against which our men were
actually flattened, and to set fire to the bars around which their hands
were clasped; but I saw that the Austrian musketry had already done its
work on the leading files, and that not one man was living amongst them.
By a blunder of one of the sappers, the portcullis had been smeared with
pitch like the bridge; and as I applied the torch, the blaze sprang up,
and, encouraged by the rush of air between the beams, spread in a second
over the whole structure. Expecting my death-wound at every instant,
I never ceased my task, even when it had become no longer necessary,
impelled by a kind of insane persistence to destroy the barrier. The
wind carrying the flame inward, however, had compelled the Austrians to
fall back, and before they could again open a collected fire on us, the
way was open, and the grenadiers, like enraged tigers, rushed wildly in.

[Illustration: frontispiece]

I remember that my coat was twice on fire as, carried on my comrades'
shoulders, I was borne along into the town. I recollect, too, the
fearful scene of suffering that ensued, the mad butchery at each doorway
as we passed, the piercing cries for mercy, and the groan of dying
agony.

War has no such terrible spectacle as a town taken by infuriated
soldiery; and even amongst the best of natures a relentless cruelty
usurps the place of every c