nd with my clenched hand. A
dozen swords were drawn in an instant. Had it not been for the most
intrepid interference, I should have been cut to pieces on the spot.
As it was, I received five or six severe sabre wounds, and one entirely
laid my cheek open from the eye to the mouth.

I was soon covered with blood from head to foot; but I stood calmly,
until faintness came on, without stirring; then I staggered back, and
sat down upon a chair. A surgeon bandaged my wrist, which had been
cut across, and my face; and, a carriage being sent for, I was at once
conveyed to hospital. The loss of blood perhaps saved me from fever. At
all events, I was calm and self-possessed; and, strangest of all, the
excitement which for months back had taken possession of me was gone,
and I was once again myself,--in patience and quiet submission calmly
awaiting the sentence which I well knew must be my death. We frequently
hear that great reverses of fortune elicit and develop resources of
character which under what are called happier circumstances had remained
dormant and unknown. I am strongly disposed to attribute much of this
result to purely physical changes, and that our days of prosperity
are seasons of inordinate excitement, with all the bodily ills that
accompany such a state. If it be so hard for the rich man to enter the
kingdom of heaven, is it not that his whole nature has been depraved
and perverted by the consummate selfishness that comes of power? What
hardeners of the heart are days of pleasure and nights of excess! And
how look for the sympathy that consoles and comforts, from him whose
greatest sufferings are the jarring contrarieties of his own nature?

I have said I was again myself, but with this addition, that a deep and
sincere sorrow was over me for my late life, and an honest repentance
for the past. I was eleven weeks in hospital; two severe relapses had
prolonged my malady; and it was nigh three months after the occurrence I
have detailed, that I was pronounced fit to be sent forward for trial by
court-martial.

There were a considerable number awaiting their trial at the same time.
Men had been drafted to Strasburg from various places, and a commission
sat _en permanence_, to dispose of them. There was little formality,
and even less time, wasted in these proceedings. The prisoner defended
himself if he were able; if not, the reading of the charge and some
slight additions of testimony completed the investigati