But it was on the burden borne by the silent horseman that every eye was fixed; a burden partly hidden by a soldier's great coat. I knew she was dead,--we all knew it,--though the head with its bright dishevelled hair, as it lay heavily on her lover's shoulder, seemed to have a semblance of life, as it moved slightly with the rise and fall of his breast. Her face was hidden, but from under the coat one long arm swayed limp, its whiteness hideously marred with jagged purple weals, from which the blood still oozed, trickling down and dripping from the tips of the fingers,--those beautiful ringless fingers that I knew and loved so well.
I had no further thought of fighting now; my brain and heart were numb, so I just dropped my weapon and fell in behind the horse, following close on its heels. Others did the same, the whole section of the crowd on this side the square moving after us, in what, compared with the chaos of a few minutes back, was an orderly retreat.
Well it was for some of them that they did so, for we had scarcely gained the street when the rattling boom of artillery sounded in the rear; followed by a renewed babel of shrieks and yells. The guns had been brought up and the work of summarily clearing the square had begun. But before the panic-stricken mob overtook us, flying helter-skelter before the new terror, Loris had urged his horse forward, or it quickened its pace of its own accord as the throng in front thinned and gave way more easily. I think I tried instinctively to keep up with it, but the crowd closed round me, the rush of fugitives from the rear overtook, overwhelmed us, and I was carried along with it.
I suppose I must have kept my footing, otherwise I should have been trampled down, as were so many others on that awful day. But where I went and what I did during the hours that followed I don't know, and I never shall. I lost all sense of time and place; though I've a hazy recollection of stumbling on alone, through dark streets, sodden with the rain that was now falling in a persistent, icy drizzle. Some of the streets were silent and deserted; in others I paused idly to watch parties of sullen soldiers and police, grumbling and swearing over their gruesome task of collecting the dead bodies, and tossing them into carts; and again I stared into brilliantly lighted cafés and listened to the boisterous merriment of those within. Were they celebrating an imaginary victory, or acting on the principle, "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow--perchance to-night--we die?"