; after which all was again still. She complained of cold, and
begged to go on. 'Presently, lady,' said Bertrand, turning over some
broken arms with the pike he usually carried. 'What have we here?'

'Hark!' cried Emily, 'what noise was that?'

'What noise was it?' said Ugo, starting up and listening.

'Hush!' repeated Emily. 'It surely came from the ramparts above:' and,
on looking up, they perceived a light moving along the walls, while,
in the next instant, the breeze swelling, the voice sounded louder than
before.

'Who goes yonder?' cried a sentinel of the castle. 'Speak or it will be
worse for you.' Bertrand uttered a shout of joy. 'Hah! my brave comrade,
is it you?' said he, and he blew a shrill whistle, which signal was
answered by another from the soldier on watch; and the party, then
passing forward, soon after emerged from the woods upon the broken road,
that led immediately to the castle gates, and Emily saw, with renewed
terror, the whole of that stupendous structure. 'Alas!' said she to
herself, 'I am going again into my prison!'

'Here has been warm work, by St. Marco!' cried Bertrand, waving a
torch over the ground; 'the balls have torn up the earth here with a
vengeance.'

'Aye,' replied Ugo, 'they were fired from that redoubt, yonder, and
rare execution they did. The enemy made a furious attack upon the great
gates; but they might have guessed they could never carry it there; for,
besides the cannon from the walls, our archers, on the two round towers,
showered down upon them at such a rate, that, by holy Peter! there was
no standing it. I never saw a better sight in my life; I laughed,
till my sides aked, to see how the knaves scampered. Bertrand, my good
fellow, thou shouldst have been among them; I warrant thou wouldst have
won the race!'

'Hah! you are at your old tricks again,' said Bertrand in a surly tone.
'It is well for thee thou art so near the castle; thou knowest I have
killed my man before now.' Ugo replied only by a laugh, and then gave
some further account of the siege, to which as Emily listened, she was
struck by the strong contrast of the present scene with that which had
so lately been acted here.

The mingled uproar of cannon, drums, and trumpets, the groans of the
conquered, and the shouts of the conquerors were now sunk into a silence
so profound, that it seemed as if death had triumphed alike over the
vanquished and the victor. The shattered condition of one of the tower