and
now they joined and now rolled apart, now joined again and clanged like
souls shrieking across the black gulfs of an earthquake; they swam aloft
with mournful delirium, tumbled together, were scattered in spray,
dissolved, renewed, died, as a last worn wave casts itself on an unfooted
shore, and rang again as through rent doorways, became a clamorous host,
an iron body, a pressure as of a down-drawn firmament, and once more a
hollow vast, as if the abysses of the Circles were sounded through and
through. To the Milanese it was an intoxication; it was the howling of
madness to the Austrians--a torment and a terror: they could neither
sing, nor laugh, nor talk under it. Where they stood in the city, the
troops could barely hear their officers' call of command. No sooner had
the bells broken out than the length of every street and Corso flashed
with the tri-coloured flag; musket-muzzles peeped from the windows; men
with great squares of pavement lined the roofs. Romara mounted a stiff
barricade and beheld a scattered regiment running the gauntlet of storms
of shot and missiles, in full retreat upon the citadel. On they came,
officers in front for the charge, as usual with the Austrians; fire on
both flanks, a furious mob at their heels, and the barricade before them.
They rushed at Romara, and were hurled back, and stood in a riddled lump.
Suddenly Romara knocked up the rifles of the couching Swiss; he yelled to
the houses to stop firing. "Surrender your prisoners,--you shall pass,"
he called. He had seen one dear head in the knot of the soldiery. No
answer was given. Romara, with Angelo and his Swiss and the ranks of the
barricade, poured over and pierced the streaming mass, steel for steel.

"Ammiani! Ammiani!" Romara cried; a roar from the other side, "Barto!
Barto! the Great Cat!" met the cry. The Austrians struck up a cheer under
the iron derision of the bells; it was ludicrous, it was as if a door had
slammed on their mouths, ringing tremendous echoes in a vaulted roof.
They stood sweeping fire in two oblong lines; a show of military array
was preserved like a tattered robe, till Romara drove at their centre and
left the retreat clear across the barricade. Then the whitecoats were
seen flowing over, the motley surging hosts from the city in
pursuit--foam of a storm-torrent hurled forward by the black tumult of
precipitous waters. Angelo fell on his brother's neck; Romara clasped
Carlo Ammiani. These two were bein