mself Delaherche could hardly breathe. What, could it be
true that they were going to fight again, were going to burn and raze
Sedan! It was certainly to be, soon as the morrow's sun should be high
enough upon the hills to light the horror of the sacrifice. And once
again he almost unconsciously climbed the steep ladder that led to the
roofs and found himself standing among the chimneys, at the edge of the
narrow terrace that overlooked the city; but at that hour of the night
the darkness was intense and he could distinguish absolutely nothing
amid the swirling waves of the Cimmerian sea that lay beneath him. Then
the buildings of the factory below were the first objects which, one by
one, disentangled themselves from the shadows and stood out before his
vision in indistinct masses, which he had no difficulty in recognizing:
the engine-house, the shops, the drying rooms, the storehouses, and when
he reflected that within twenty-four hours there would remain of that
imposing block of buildings, his fortune and his pride, naught save
charred timbers and crumbling walls, he overflowed with pity for
himself. He raised his glance thence once more to the horizon, and
sent it traveling in a circuit around that profound, mysterious veil of
blackness behind which lay slumbering the menace of the morrow. To the
south, in the direction of Bazeilles, a few quivering little flames that
rose fitfully on the air told where had been the site of the unhappy
village, while toward the north the farmhouse in the wood of la Garenne,
that had been fired late in the afternoon, was burning still, and the
trees about were dyed of a deep red with the ruddy blaze. Beyond the
intermittent flashing of those two baleful fires no light to be seen;
the brooding silence unbroken by any sound save those half-heard
mutterings that pass through the air like harbingers of evil; about
them, everywhere, the unfathomable abyss, dead and lifeless. Off there
in the distance, very far away, perhaps, perhaps upon the ramparts, was
a sound of someone weeping. It was all in vain that he strained his eyes
to pierce the veil, to see something of Liry, la Marfee, the batteries
of Frenois, and Wadelincourt, that encircling belt of bronze monsters
of which he could instinctively feel the presence there, with their
outstretched necks and yawning, ravenous muzzles. And as he recalled his
glance and let it fall upon the city that lay around and beneath him, he
heard its frig