At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 126: what you’re looking at

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

my A tees i . 4 ‘ ' 4 ~W 4 ~ ® ‘ ‘ AT A GIRL’S MERCY. 115 len silence brooded over everything, that foretold the storm was not quite spent. Many a fire flag flut- tered up from different parts, showing that the fiend, though quiet, was not quelled. And in the midst of these horrors, when many a time it seemed as though the brute element must conquer, Nan’s fa- ther was among the fiercest of the city’s defenders. He struggled with the youngest and most daring. He forgot all else save the mad desire to overpower this heathenish onslaught. His blood was up, as it had threatened many a time when he knew of the boiling fury among the lower class, and he would fight it as he would so many hounds gone mad. He knew that Nan must be anxious about him, but rested in the hope that she had heard nothing cer- tain about the struggle that was going on. He sent the message as soon as he could safely get where he could do so. He knew that even a hard certainty was preferable to the terrible suspense she would endure should he send no word. But the immediate need of action left little time to such thoughts, and the day was too full of things more terrible to admit of his giving more than a passing thought to the quiet life at the old Hall, where his wife lay so low, and his daughter waited to know the worst. More than once he barely escaped with his life, so eager was he to rush into the midst of the more ter- rible part of the struggle, held back only by the dis- cipline that was all that could conquer this brute fury, that had no head and no heart, and was of the most part in such a state of intoxication as to be hardly more than beasts. : ‘“‘1’d shoot any one of them, or all of them, as I would so many wild beasts,’’ he declared, excitedly, to one of the officers who was beside him, as they S) (eo) Gomicboo nm