The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 299: what you’re looking at

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

296 THE CHILD OF WATERLOO. ‘* Adieu: it is so.” The speaker, who was a staff officer, came out of the tent, and as he did so he faced me. He started, for I was in the Prussian uniform; he laid his hand on his sword. ‘* Sacre! whence came you ?” I pointed upward and said, while his teeth seemed to chatter, and his whole body shook with fear— ‘‘T am the avenger; I hate your race.” As Ispoke I thrust my sword through his body, just as his friend, hearing the words he had spoken, came up and caught him in his arms. He stood still for a moment, and seeing. his friend dead, threw the body down and drawing his own sword, and shouting to some one to aid him, he rushed on me. This was needless, for my sword was drawn, and as he came on I transfixed him with my weapon just below the breast, and its point came out at the back-bone behind. He fell dead and never spoke, but hearing a disturbance, I walked into the tent, and there saw a Frenchwomap; she lay on a bed with an infant in her arms. ‘‘Curse of mankind,” I muttered, ‘‘and belonging to an ac- cursed race, never will I spare French blood; you die as others have died before you. Curse! curse! curse you!” The female looked up; but a feeling of horror came over her, and she could not speak. I raised my sword, a shriek came from her lips as I plunged it into her breast and the warm blood gushed up into my face. T should have destroyed the child, but there was no time for that. I cut my way through the tent, and had scarcely got on the outside when others entered it on the other. There was an alarm given, and parties were sent out every- where. The death of the staff-officers in the midst of the camp, with the wife of one of them, was a matter they could not very well account for. I escaped to my quarters, after destroying a few sentinels, upon whom I came unawares. The day is over; many men lie slaughtered; the French are often beaten, but their officers preserve the appearance of vic- tory. The indecision of ours often happens through the ill effects of councils of war, that limit the operations of men who should be free in their choice of alternatives, but which is not allowed them. We were presumed to have had the worst, and yet our com- manders are ready to fight to-morrow. We are encamped within a mile or two of the French, and I have walked over the field of battle. The French usually conceal their loss from people when they can; but it never reaches the papers, they are suppressed, and none know of it, save the officers, and they dare not speak out respecting it, even if they would. This day had been a terrific one, and men fell by hundreds. I was among the thickest of the fight. Ido not say so to gain applause, for who shall applaud me; and, moreover, who shall know aught of it, even should these papers fall into any one’s comicbooks. com