This immense execution upon the population and their young was hurried over so rapidly, that at three o'clock in the afternoon nearly all was ended; the city was sacked and depopulated in every corner, and its future beyond all hope of a resurrection.
We thought that some fugitive might still be lurking in concealment; that perhaps the conquerors would abandon the desert if we transported them, with the destroyed city, into a paved coach-yard outside the garden; that then would awake in them the remembrance of their family, to whom, moreover, they could carry nothing more to be devoured. Our expectation was realized.
On the morning of the 10th of June we saw them scattered along all the roads which led towards their dwelling-place, at the other end of the garden. But the destiny of the vanquished seemed accomplished. The dead and silent city was nothing but a cemetery, where, with the exception of a few scattered bodies, could only be seen some dead wood, some old pods of Northern trees, and their gloomy aiguilles (pines and once-green firs), not less dead than the city itself.
I confess that such a vengeance, so disproportionate to the act which was its cause or pretext, excited in me a strong feeling of indignation, and my heart, changing sides, was completely alienated from those little black barbarians.
So, observing that some of them, still implacable, were promenading among the ruins, I sent them rudely flying over its walls (that is, the edges of the vase). In vain it was gently pointed out to me that these blacks had been provoked, that they had shown the greatest courage, having braved so great a peril that their destruction might almost have been predicted. They were cruel and savage but heroic tribes, like the Iroquois, the Hurons, the revengeful heroes who formerly peopled the forests of the Mississippi and Canada. These reasons were good, but did not calm me. I felt too keenly the enormity of the crime. Without wishing to annihilate them, I confess that if these ferocious blacks had chanced to come under my foot I should not have turned aside.
The unfortunate empty vase continually reminded me of what had occurred, and held me as by a spell. On the evening of the 11th we were still seated on the ground before it, with our chin in our hand, completely absorbed in thought. Our gaze plunged into its depths. We persisted in longing for a sign of life to appear upon its perfect immobility, a something which might still say that all was not finished. This firm resolve seemed to have the potency of an evocation, and as if our desires had recalled to daylight some miserable spirit of the widowed city, one of the victims which had escaped made its appearance, and hurried headlong away from the field of death. And we perceived that it carried a cradle.
Night came, and it was in a completely strange locality, surrounded by enemies. A few holes, which one might mistake for places of refuge, were precisely the mouths opening into the Inferno of the blacks. The unhappy fugitive, with its misfortune increased by the burden of its infant, ran distractedly, and without knowing whither. I followed it with my eyes and heart, until the darkness concealed it from me.
