The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

18 THE CHILD OF WATERLOO. his mortification, when he pulled the trigger, that the recent rain had damped the powder, and no discharge followed. Casting the weapon at his feet with an oath, he produced another, but by this time some of the foremost of the advanc- ing soldiers had seen Marie, and were running forward to meet her, for her cries for help had reached the ears of hun- dreds-of them. One fleet runner just met her, and caught her in his arms, as Sternholde fired the second pistol; which was fully discharged. ‘* Hit, by Heaven!” he cried, as he saw the soldier and Marie fall to the ground together. ‘‘ Hit, and her weight bas knocked that meddling fool over.” A rattling discharge of musketry was immediately sent after him, but he plunged into the ruins of the still burning farm- house, and was on the instant lost to view, apparently quite un- Side from any of the random shots which had been discharged ter bim, ‘CHAPTER V. FIFTEEN years had passed away since that memorable battle of Waterloo had been fought and won. The political events which followed that awful conflict had not then fully developed themselves, but they were doing so rapidly. Peace had been restored to Europe, but the angry passions which many years had fostered and generated, now only slept for a time or felt themselves chained down by the force of circumstances. But what charges, amid all those which have been produced by time and circumstances during those fifteen years, have oc- curred to those persons in whore fates we have become inter: ested, from watching fora brief space of time, what occurred to them on that field of carnage, when the name of Waterloo was fresh in the minds of men, and the account of the most sanguinary conflict of modern times appeared to Europe more liké a dream than a reality, bringing in its train such impor- tant results? | What has become of the young ensign who lay thete so badly wounded, and thinking of the happy home he had left, to engage in such a scene, and make one of the miscalculating people who prefer doing the fighting abroad to paying for it at home? here is he, and how has he prospered or retro- graded in his circumstances since that awful day ? And the young child whom he made so ready a promise to protect—where is she—Mabel, as she was named? Fifteen years must have made great alterations in her, if still she be numbered anong the living. And .the battle-fiend—Sternholde, the wild, revengeful man, who had conducted an interview on the field of blood with the bereaved young mother, that said so little for his head or for his heart—does he still continue his mad career, or has the grim hand of death been laid upon him, and stopped him in the midst of his atrocities? comicbooks. com