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Another officer came by, leading his patient, bleeding horse, over which was flung the dusty body of a brother soldier. The long convoy was moving more swiftly now; the air trembled with the cries of the mangled or the hoarse groans of the dying. A Sister of Mercy her frail arm in a sling crept on her knees among the wounded lying in a straw-filled cart.
Taking a huge cross-bow, he stood forward in front of the army, to try the steadiness of his hand against the much-dreaded archer: the shaft was aimed directly at his heart, and took fatal effect. The Moslem fell amid the groans of the besieged, and the shouts of Deus adjuva! Deus adjuva! the war-cry of the besiegers.
Infinitely beautiful was it to observe this region, of which every point had its interest, gradually enveloped in darkness. By the ancients Ætna was supposed to be the prison of the mighty chained giant Typhon, the flames proceeding from his breath and the noises from his groans; and when he turned over earthquakes shook the island.
The other is the crackling of a burning house in the night's dead hours, the piteous cries of pain and terror from the lips of wounded babes; the despairing, heart-rending, maddening shrieks of the wife and mother; the harrowing groans of the dying husband and father, and the gladsome shout of the fiendish mob of white American citizens, who have wrought the havoc just described, a deed sufficiently horrible to make Satan blush and hell hastily hide her face in shame.
Groans and cries followed the discharge, and the dark mass of human beings, with the ladders on which they had stood, fell crashing below. Still others came on, evidently determined to gain an entrance at all costs. Although the muskets of the defenders had performed their deadly work, they themselves had not escaped unscathed from the assegais of the Zulus.
The remainder of their conversation was lost to the ears of the driver, but seemed to consist mainly of a series of attempts on the part of Mugford to say something, which were always interrupted by a chorus of groans, and shouts of "Shut up!" from his two companions.
She was seized with convulsive stiflings, with agonizing pains, and her voice was only heard in groans. Margaret cried, 'Where is my son? I do not see my son! and fainted. We ran to her assistance. In a short time she recovered, and being assured that her son was safe, and under the care of the governor, she only thought of succouring her friend, who had long successive faintings.
At this moment, the agonized carriage, after several groans that would have moved the heart of a highway commissioner, gave a rush downward, and committed suicide in the most determined manner, by dashing its axle on the ground the wheels endeavouring in vain to fathom the profundity of the ruts, and the horses totally unable to move the stranded equipage.
Merciless in the treatment of his captives, putting them to death by horrible tortures, or immuring them in the dark and noisome dungeon of his tower, he would hold his revels over their heads, and deride their groans. Heaps of treasure, obtained by pillage, were secured by him in the tower.
They seated themselves on the "anxious benches;" the hymn ceased, and two of the three priests walked down from the tribune, and going, one to the right, and the other to the left, began whispering to the poor tremblers seated there. These whispers were inaudible to us, but the sobs and groans increased to a frightful excess.
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