The fumes of brimstone acted on his senses like hasheesh to narcotic smokers.

An irresistible impulse urged him forwards.

A voice kept crying in his ears, "Kill and slay, and spare not!" This was while the fury of the combat lasted, when the Prussian battalions were hurling their human waves in columns against the rocky defences of Gravelotte, only for them to fall back impotently, like the broken foam and spent wash of billows which have assailed in vain the precipitous peaks of some cliff-defended coast that repels their every attack; when the sharp clash of steel met opposing steel and galloping thud of flying squadrons, urged on with savage oath and triumphant cheer, filled the air; when the gurgling groan of the death-agony and moan of painless pain, made the treble of the devil-music, to the thundering sustained bass of the cannon roar, and the growling arpeggio accompaniment of the mitrailleuse! But, when, after one last fearful combined volley, in which every single piece of ordnance on the field seemed to take part, the hideous turmoil of sound ceased as if by mutual consent.

A sort of solemn hush, in company with the night, caused comparative stillness to brood over the scene, in contrast to the pandemoniacal noise that had previously reigned so fiendishly.

Then, all of a sudden, Fritz appeared to awake suddenly from a disturbed dream or phantom-haunted night-mare, in which all the powers of evil were tearing at his heart and brain.