The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

4 THE CHILD OF WATERLOO, The young officer felt a strange sensation of alarm, and he made a sudden and ill-advised movement, by which his wound bled inwardly and came in his mouth, nearly choking him, and producing a sudden faintness which reduced him almost to death; and yet, it was strange, of all his faculties he preserved his sight the last, and, as he lay bereft of all power of move- ment, he saw the strange, hideous form coming by a devious track closer and still closer to him. Then he heard the voice of the Irishman. ‘* Whist, sir, whist! It’s a female woman, sir. Eh!—did you spake, sir? Eh—eh? Oh, bedad, he’s gone to glory. Pace be to him, amin! and great glory above and all around, amin! Sir —sir! Oh, he’s gone off. Quiet asa lamb. Pace be toall here, glory and amin!” On, on came the figure slowly, but. surely; and now, ag it neared him, the young officer became aware that as far as dress went, it was a female form, and that what had given it the huge, misshapen appearance it had worn at a distance, arose from the fact that she carried with her a large sack, that no doubt was well filled with the spoils of the dead. The young officer’s whole soul was concentrated in his eyes. He saw the robber of the dead p>’ _—s—- sefore a heap of slain, and commence the task of rifline sets and cutting off costly ornaments from the unifor™ 16 saw her suddenly pause and start back a step. Then saw the glittering blade of a long knife which she held in her hand. It was raised, and poised a moment in the air; then, with a dart forward like a tigress, she buried it in some one’s heart, for there arose simultaneously with the blow one short, sharp shriek, and then all was still. He could not speak—he could not move. He felt that next it might be his turn to be murdered in bis helplessness. A cold perspiration broke out upon him—he felt a sort of consciousness that now his last hour had come. Desperate were the efforts he made to shake off the strange waking trance that had come over him, but they were ail in vain. There he lay, with the power of fancying all the horrors of such an impending doom as that which seemed now certain to him, and yet without the power to move a limb, or to breathe one word of deprecation. And Rafferty, too, thought he was dead, and so made no effort for him; and yet what could he do, sorely wounded and with a broken limb? He thought he heard a rustling behind him, as if the wounded Irishman were trying to creep away, and then again every sense that was left him became concentrated in watching the movements of the woman. Now she was near enough that he could hear she was mutter- ing to herself in a compound language of Dutch, French and German, and he became convinced she was one of those harpies who infest an army, and like vultures, hover on the outskirts of a battle to feed upon the slain. Tbat the incursions of these people were as much guarded against as possible he well knew; but no human vigilance could certainly keep them out of the field of slaughter; and it was horrible, indeed, to think of escaping absolute death in the con: comicbooks. com