“Lavater is behind,” I said; “I must hasten to help him. Go in, and I will join you in an instant.”
“Did you do that?” he inquired, looking at the dead soldier, and then at the rifle in my hand.
“I did,” I answered, in a firmer tone than might have been expected, “and he deserved his fate. But go in, dear Father. I will return in a moment.”
I led him toward the door as I spoke, and saw him enter the house; and then ran up the street to the spot where I had seen the struggle I have mentioned. Two dead bodies were lying on the pavement. One was that of a young woman of the lower class, fallen partly on her side, with a bayonet-wound in the chest. The other was that of a man dressed in black, who had fallen forward on his face. I turned him over, and beheld the features of Lavater; I took his hand, and the touch showed me that death was there.
I had knelt while doing this, when a sudden sound made me attempt to rise—but I could not do so; for, while still upon my knee, I was struck by the feet of two or three men, cast back upon the ground, and trampled under foot by a number of Austrians in full flight. Every thing became dark and confused. I saw the long gaiters, and caught a glance of arms and accoutrements, and felt heavy feet set upon my chest, and on my head—and then all was night.
Although the weather was hot, and summer at its height, in that high mountain region the night was almost invariably cool. Probably that circumstance saved my life; for I must have remained, I know, several hours on the pavement untended, and perhaps unnoticed by any one. When I recovered my senses, it was nearly midnight, and then I found several good souls around me. One woman was bathing my head and chest with cold water, while a man supported my shoulders upon his knee. The first objects I saw, however, were three or four persons moving the body of the woman, near whom I had fallen, to a small hand-bier. The body of Lavater was already gone.
“Look, look, he opens his eyes!” cried the woman who was tending me so kindly. “Poor lad! we shall get him round! Where will you be taken to, young man?”
I named faintly the house where we lodged, and then another woman, who was standing by, exclaimed, “Heaven! it is young Lassi! Better take him to the hospital.”
I tried in vain to inquire after Father Bonneville; for a faint, death-like sensation came over me, and I was obliged to let them do what they pleased with me. A blanket was soon procured, and placed in it, as in a hammock, I was carried up into the higher part of the town to the hospital, and there laid upon a bed, in a ward where some hundreds of wounded men were already congregated. A surgeon, with his hands bloody, an apron on, and a saw under his arm, soon came to me, and asked where I was wounded. I endeavored to answer, but could not make myself intelligible; and putting down the saw, he ordered me to be stripped, and examined me all over. Two of my ribs, it seemed had been broken, and my head terribly beaten about. Indeed, I was one general bruise. But my limbs were all sound, and in four or five days, although I suffered a great deal of pain, and the scenes which were going on around me were not calculated to revive the spirits of any one, I was sufficiently recovered to make inquiries for Father Bonneville, whenever I saw a new face, and to send a message for him to the house where we lodged, giving him notice that I was to be found at the hospital.
Father Bonneville himself did not appear, but our landlord came in his stead—a good, plain, honest man, of a kindly disposition. He told me, much to my consternation, that my good friend, as he called him, had been carried off as a prisoner by the Austrians, after they got possession of the town; that he was suspected of being one of the French Revolutionary Agents, and that most likely he would have been hanged at once, without the testimony of himself, our landlord, who had come forward to prove that he was a quiet, inoffensive man, who meddled not with politics in any shape, and would have gladly got out of the town, after the French occupation, had it been possible. This saved his life for the time; but the only favor that could be obtained was that the case should be reserved for further investigation. At the time he was carried away, Father Bonneville was perfectly ignorant of my fate, the landlord said, and feared that I had been killed. The good man, however, promised that he would make every inquiry for my friend, and urged me, in the meantime, to have myself carried to his house as soon as possible. For more than a fortnight, during which time I was unable to quit the hospital, he came every day to see me, but brought no intelligence of Father Bonneville. At length he had me removed to his own house, and there he, and his good old wife, attended upon me with great kindness till I was quite well.