‘I’m an officer in the army of Ireland. I don’t belong to ye at all. You’ve no power over me. Oh, captain, darlin’; oh, gentlemen, speak for me! General, dear; general, honey, don’t sintince me! don’t, for the love o’ God!’ and in grovelling terror the miserable creature threw himself on his knees to beg for mercy.
‘Tear off his epaulettes,’ cried Serasin; ‘never let a French uniform be so disgraced!’
The soldiers wrenched off the epaulettes at the command, and, not satisfied with this, they even tore away the lace from the cuffs of the uniform, which now hung in ragged fragments over his trembling hands.
‘Oh, sir! oh, general! oh, gentlemen, have marcy!’
‘Away with him,’ said Serasin contemptuously; ‘it is only the cruel can be such cowards. Give the fellow his fusillade with blank cartridge, and, the chances are, fear will kill him outright.’
The scene that ensued is too shocking, too full of abasement, to record; there was nothing that fear of death, nothing that abject terror could suggest, that this miserable wretch did not attempt to save his life; he wept—he begged in accents that were unworthy of all manhood—he kissed the very ground at the general’s feet in his abject sorrow; and when at last he was dragged from the room, his screams were the most piercing and terrific.
Although all my compassion was changed into contempt, I felt that I could never have given the word to fire upon him, had such been my orders; his fears had placed him below all manhood, but they still formed a barrier of defence around him. I accordingly whispered a few words to the sergeant, as we passed down the stairs, and then, affecting to have forgotten something, I stepped back towards the room, where the general and his staff were sitting. The scuffling sound of feet, mingled with the crash of firearms, almost drowned the cries of the still struggling wretch; his voice, however, burst forth into a wild cry, and then there came a pause—a pause that at last became insupportable to my anxiety, and I was about to rush downstairs, when a loud yell, a savage howl of derision and hate burst forth from the street; and on looking out I saw a vast crowd before the door, who were shouting after a man, whose speed soon carried him out of reach. This was Dowall, who, thus suffered to escape, was told to fly from the town and never to return to it.
‘Thank Heaven,’ muttered I, ‘we’ve seen the last of him.’
The rejoicing was, however, premature.