There
was a heavy, sullen, tremendous explosion that snuffed out the sound of
the cannon, and paralyzed the French and Prussian gunners' hands, and
checked the very beating of their hearts. Thirty thousand pounds of
gunpowder were in that awful explosion. War itself held its breath,
and both armies, like peaceable spectators, gazed wonder-struck,
terror-struck. Great hell seemed to burst through the earth's crust,
and to be rushing at heaven. Huge stones, cannons, corpses, and limbs of
soldiers, were seen driven or falling through the smoke. Some of these
last came quite clear of the ruins, ay, into the French and Prussian
lines, that even the veterans put their hands to their eyes. Raynal felt
something patter on him from the sky--it was blood--a comrade's perhaps.
The smoke cleared. Where, a moment before, the great bastion stood and
fought, was a monstrous pile of blackened, bloody stones and timbers,
with dismounted cannon sticking up here and there.
And, rent and crushed to atoms beneath the smoking mass, lay the relics
of the gallant brigade, and their victorious colors.
Pages:
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526