been carried away
bodily by the fiery blast that blew there. Others had suffered less; one
in particular, owing to some chance, had escaped almost without injury,
while its neighbors on either hand, literally torn to pieces by the iron
hail, were like gaunt skeletons. An unbearable stench was everywhere,
noticeable, the nauseating odor that follows a great fire, aggravated
by the penetrating smell of petroleum, that had been used without stint
upon floors and walls. Then, too, there was the pitiful, mute spectacle
of the household goods that the people had endeavored to save, the
poor furniture that had been thrown from windows and smashed upon the
sidewalk, crazy tables with broken legs, presses with cloven sides and
split doors, linen, also, torn and soiled, that was trodden under foot;
all the sorry crumbs, the unconsidered trifles of the pillage, of which
the destruction was being completed by the dissolving rain. Through the
breach in a shattered house-front a clock was visible, securely fastened
high up on the wall above the mantel-shelf, that had miraculously
escaped intact.

"The beasts! the pigs!" growled Prosper, whose blood, though he was no
longer a soldier, ran hot at the sight of such atrocities.

He doubled his fists, and Silvine, who was white as a ghost, had
to exert the influence of her glance to calm him every time they
encountered a sentry on their way. The Bavarians had posted sentinels
near all the houses that were still burning, and it seemed as if those
men, with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets, were guarding the fires in
order that the flames might finish their work. They drove away the mere
sightseers who strolled about in the vicinity, and the persons who had
an interest there as well, employing first a menacing gesture, and in
case that was not sufficient, uttering a single brief, guttural word of
command. A young woman, her hair streaming about her shoulders, her gown
plastered with mud, persisted in hanging about the smoking ruins of
a little house, of which she desired to search the hot ashes,
notwithstanding the prohibition of the sentry. The report ran that the
woman's little baby had been burned with the house. And all at once, as
the Bavarian was roughly thrusting her aside with his heavy hand, she
turned on him, vomiting in his face all her despair and rage, lashing
him with taunts and insults that were redolent of the gutter, with
obscene words which likely afforded her some cons