The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 199: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

196 THE CHILD OF WATERLOO. ““T’'m a dead man, by G—d!” He reeled backward, and, being on the stairs, lost his footing, and thus fell headlong down on to the next landing, without sense or motion. The sounds and words were eléctric—they were heard by all in the house, and a dreadful consternation seized upon ll who saw the dreadful occurrence, and they who had offered gratui- tous advice instantly disappeared. The other officer, for a moment, stood up, and gazed at the fallen body of his brother officer. He saw it was no use offering aid to one already dead. The mendicant himself felt the release of the hand, and soon gained breath. A few deep and rapid inspirations seemed to re- store, in some measure, his strength—not as it was before, but it enabled him to renew the struggle with the remaining officer. This was of a most desperate character, for both seemed nearly equal in strength—the officer the stronger of the two, but not much—both were exhausted. ‘¢ Murderer! villain! surrender!” ‘‘Never while I breathe. I have killed one man—I know my doom-—see you do not share his fate.” <“‘Not it I can hold you, villain as you are,” said the other. ‘I call upon you, in the name of the king, to help me.” — No one, however, responded to this appeal, and the officer con- tinued to hold the mendicant. “Tf you do not help me, I will have you all punished; you are bound to help me by law.” However, the law was not very potent there; it was, at all events, disobeyed; for no one took any notice of the behest. Seeing it was a struggle for life and death, the officer did all he could to disable his opponent, who seemed almost insensible to pain or fatigue, though he, in fact, was hardly able to stand from atigue. He tore him away from the banisters, and dashed his head against the wall, The blood flowed copiously from both; and, in a few moments more, the mendicant gave a sudden swing, and they bota came with such force against the hand-rails, that they all flew out, and officer and mendicant fell into the passage beneath, where they lay for a minute or two, stunned. The officer was the first to recover, and taking advantage of the moment, had nearly slipped the handcuffs over the mendi- cant’s hands; but by a sudden twist he saved himself from being thus secured. The struggle was again renewed, and they both fought their way down the stairs. Scarce a word was spoken by either; they were too much oc- cupied by the desperate nature of the struggle they were en- gaged in, and which had been painfully prolonged. Had neither of them such strong and exciting motives—the ope for captur- ing and the other for escaping—the conflict must soon have ended one way or the other: but the fact was, mental excite- ment aided the bodily strength, and made them almost insen- sible to what they suffered. Their struggles were weak and slow to what they had been, comicbooks. com