Six Years Ago (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1878 Excerpt: ...had just tolled midnight, when an unwonted clamour of all the church bells began, while the attention of the besieging force, more especially of the outpickets and trench guards, was arrested by the guns of the city firing, apparently at random, in every direction, to cloak, as it eventually proved, the sounds of a sortie, one of the many made by the resolute garrison of old General Uhrich. An observant eye might have observed a great dark column, every sound made by which was muffled by the din in Strasbourg, debouching from the Jews' Gate, along the hollow way amid which Ludwig had posted a special sentinel. Why did not that sentinel fire? By failing to do so, he was guilty of betraying his post. Yet the Rhinelander, a trained soldier, was not, when the story became known. Under screen of a hedgerow a man had approached stealthily--Wolfhart, the spy and guide--pistol in hand again, but this time capped, and surely so. To a wretch whose spirit was cowardly and cunning, it was a time of dreadful suspense, if the eye of the soldier on whom he was creeping, as before he had crept on the count, detected him. The figure of the silent and motionless Rhinelander, in his great-coat and pickelhanbe, looked gigantic and muscular in the dark, as Wolfhart crept round and stole upon him from behind. He was all unconscious of the coming evil till Wolfhart's clutch was on his throat, a pistol was at his ear, and the fierce threat was hissed into it: "Silence If you utter one word, your brains will spatter the grass " Deprived of all his faculties by the sudden surprise, the Rhinelander permitted himself to be disarmed and dragged to the front, where he suddenly found himself a prisoner of war amid the dense mass of Garde Mobile Infantry of the Line, and the 13...