Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1894-01-26
ASTORY BLOOD.
CHAPTER Ix.-ooNrINUED.


CHAPTER IX.--CONTINUED.
She crossed to the left bank of the river,
and began her pilgrimage of despair. The
distance WAS long every step was WEAKNESS
and pain after her days's wanderngs. All
the length of the Boulevard ST. Michel,
along which the ambulance-wagons were
passing in dismal procession, crimson with
blood. Under their scanty covering were
heaped confused mass of corpses. The
dead were being carried away by wagon
loads On and on, past barricade at which
the men of the quarter were working, old
gray-headed men among them, men who
only wanted TO die peacefully at home with
wife and children, and who, knowing that
death was inevitable, struck he-oically to
their posts. On and on, till the blaze of tho
Conhagration, the roar of the flames, SEEM
ed to be left behind. But not the duh thun-
der of the cannonadc, the sharp crack Of
pistolshOts. Carnage was audible on every
side.
Blood everywhere-the pavement was
stained with it; the doors and door-posts
were splashed with il; the cutters ran with
1t. Refuse of all kinds Uttered the road;
butt-ends of muskets fragments Of belts,
tails of coats strips of blouseS, caps, car
touch-boxes, shoes; and here, on the open
space in front of barricade, the soldiers
who had eaten their soup had lain down to
sleep by the side of the slain, the living
mingled with the dead Kathleen looked
at the sleepers shudderingly in the cold
clear moonlight. The clouds had drifted
away, and that scene of carnage was steep
ed in the silvery light. Impossible to pass
that spot with feet undyed in blood, imposSi-
bic to avoid seeing those dead faces. There,
with arms thrown wide apart and face turn
ed to the sky, calm, proud even III death,
lies the young lieutenant of artillery whom
Kathleen remembered to have seen in the
early morning, sitting astride cannon,
thoughtful, with arms folded, and face pro-
phetic Of doom. Yes, it is he and no other.
His vest is open, as he flung it apart when
the victors called upon him to surrender.
His heart is one wide bloody wound. All
the gladness and pride of youth have welled
out in that purple stream.
No lack of traffic upon the boulevard or
in the street, albeit the night is far advanced
towards morning. The omnibuSes are GO
inc again-thoSe useful omnibuses the lux
ury of the poOr-but then faces are not the
living, but the dead. They carry CHASTITY
load of blood-stained cOrpses piled at ran
dom, thrust i'm helter-skelter. There are
not vehicles enough for this dismal traffic.
RaiIway-wagOns, breaks, all are pressed I'M
to the funeral service. Men with sleeves
turned up collect the dead, the hideOus train
moving slowly from barricade to barricade.
One man stands looking with horror az
his naked arms, stepped up to the shoulders
i'm blood. "Are there no fountains here
ahoutS?" he asked of the crowd. Yes fOun-
tainS, rivers of water are needed TO purify
ths Paris, drowned in the blood of her chill
urcn.
], is deep in the night but the stiffness Of
night is not here. Men, women, families
are grouped in the doorways. No one knows
where the conflagration will end, how near
the carnage may come; no man knows if he
and his dear ones will see the daylight
above the roofs and steeples Of eastern Paris
Heavily, drearily the wagons go by with
their silent burden. This may be called the
night-watch of the slain. On the Boule-
ward d'Italie the insurgents have erected a
monster redoubt, a fertilization in triple
stages, with trenches, loopholes, tunnels,
defended at first by five hundred men. The
defenders have dwindled to five, but these
five will not yield. Their fortress is bonn
barded, the adjoining houses are in flames;
but still the five refuse To surrender, and
after deadly fight, that has lasted thirty
nine hours, they are taken and shot by the
Vcrsaillais.
Such conflicts, as bloody as resolute, have
been enacted all over Paris in the day that
is not yet old. And now the moonlit hours,
the calm of night, are given TO the gather
ing up Of The dead Victors and vanquish-
ed lie cheek by jowl on the stones of Paris
hecatombs sacrificed to discord and civil
war. The red flag flies yet here and there
above the carnage, the bloody ensign of a
bloody reign.