The will-o'-the-wisp torches had stopped dancing forward now, but
still they remained there, quite inexplicable in their fixity. We
imagined that our five minutes' bombardment must have carried death
and destruction to everyone and everything. And yet what did this
mean? The flames, which had been licking round near the cathedral,
suddenly burst up in a great pillar of fire. That was the answer; the
cathedral was at last alight. At this we all gave a howl of rage, for
we knew what that meant. The picquets had been mysteriously reinforced
by Frenchmen, Englishmen, and men of half a dozen other nationalities,
all chattering together in all the languages of Europe. "_Que faire,
que faire_," somebody kept bawling. "Get your damned gun out of the
way," shouted other angry voices, "and let us charge the beggars." But
Captain T----, the Austrian commander, was already conferring with a
dear colleague whom he had discovered in the dark. Even in this storm
of excitement the protocol could not be forgotten. Marines, sailors,
and Legation juniors groaned; was this opportunity to be missed? At
last they arranged it; it should be a charge of volunteers.

"Volunteers to the front," shouted somebody. Everybody sprang forward
like one man. A French squad was already fixing bayonets noisily and
excusing their rattle and cursing on account of the dark; the
Austrians had deployed and were already advancing. _"Pas de charge,"_
called a French middy. Somebody started tootling a bugle, and
helter-skelter we were off down the street, with fixed bayonets and
loaded magazines, a veritable massacre for ourselves in the dark....

The charge blew itself out in less than four hundred yards, and we
pulled up panting, swearing and laughing. Somebody had stuck some one
else through the seat of the trousers, and the some one else was