At early bedtime, when we stepped out of the door of the lit-up mansion
into the street, it was as though we had stepped into a far-off country.
Except for the tramp of a sentry's hobbed boots over the sidewalks and
the challenging call of another sentry round the corner the town was as
silent as a town of tombs. All the people who remained in this place
had closed their forlorn shops where barren shelves and emptied
showcases testified to the state of trade; and they had shut themselves
up in their houses away from sight of the invaders. We could guess what
their thoughts must be. Their industries were paralyzed, and their
liberties were curtailed, and every other house was a breached and
worthless shell. Among ourselves we debated as we walked along to the
squalid tavern where we had been quartered, which of the spectacles we
had that day seen most fitly typified the fruitage of war--the
shattered, haunted forts lying now in the moonlight beyond the town, or
the brooding conquered, half-destroyed town itself.
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