The stars were yet in the sky, and all was so still that they thrilled the air like something unearthly.

Antonia started up, and ran to the roof.

Bugle was answering bugle; and their tones were imperative and cruel, as if they were blown by evil spirits.
It was impossible to avoid the feeling that the call was a PREDESTINED summons, full of the notes of calamity.

She was weighed down by this sorrowful presentiment, because, as yet, neither experience nor years had taught her that PREDESTINED ILLS ARE NEVER LOST.
The unseen moving multitudes troubled the atmosphere between them.

In wild, savage gusts, she heard the military bands playing the infamous Dequelo, whose notes of blood and fire commingled, shrieked in every ear--"NO QUARTER! NO QUARTER!" A prolonged shout, the booming of cannon, an awful murmurous tumult, a sense of horror, of crash and conflict, answered the merciless, frenzied notes, and drowned them in the shrieks and curses they called for.
It was yet scarcely dawn.