his wound is dressing, speeds off a courier to Vienna. Courier did enter duly there, with glorious trumpeting postilions, and universal hep-hep-hurrah; kindling that ardently loyal city into infinite triumph and illumination,-for the space of certain hours following.

Hülsen meanwhile has been doing his best to get into proper bivouac for the morrow; has drawn back those eastward horse regiments, drawn forward the infantry battalions; forward, I think, and well rightward, where, in the daytime, Daun's left flank was. On the whole, it is northwestward that the general Prussian bivouac for this night is; the extremest southwesternmost portion of it is Infantry, under General Lestwitz; a gallant useful man, who little dreams of becoming famous this dreary uncertain night.

It is six o'clock. Damp dusk has thickened down into utter darkness, on these terms :—when, lo, cannonade and musketade from the south, audible in the Lestwitz-Hülsen quarters seriously loud; red glow of conflagration visible withal,—some unfortunate village going up (“Village of Siptitz think you?"); and need of Hülsen at his fastest! Hulsen, with some readiest foot regiments, circling round, makes thitherward; Lestwitz in the van. Let us precede him thither, and explain a little what it was.

Ziethen, who had stood all day making idle noises,—of what a fatal quality we know, if Ziethen did not,-waiting for the King's appearance, must have been considerably displeased with himself at nightfall, when the King's fire gradually died out farther and farther north, giving rise to the saddest surmises. Ziethen's Generals, Saldern and Möllendorf, are full of gloomy impatience, urgent on him to try something. "Push westward, nearer the King? Some stroke at the enemy on their south or southwestern side, where we have not molested them all day? No getting across the Röhrgraben on them, says your Excellenz? Siptitz village, and their battery there, is on our side of the Röhrgraben: -um Gottes Willen, something, Herr General!" Ziethen does finally assent: draws leftward, westward; unbuckles Saldern's people upon Siptitz; who go like sharp hounds from the slip; fasten on Siptitz and the Austrians there, with a

will; wrench these out, force them to abandon their battery, and to set Siptitz on fire, while they run out of it. Comfortable bit of success, so far,—were not Siptitz burning, so that we cannot get through. "Through, no; and were we through, is not there the Röhrgraben?" thinks Ziethen, not seeing his way.

How lucky that, at this moment, Möllendorf comes in, with a discovery to westward; discovery of our old friend "the Butter-Street,"—it is nothing more,—where Ziethen should have marched this morning: there would he have found a solid road across the Röhrgraben, free passage by a bridge between two bits of ponds, at the Schäferei (SheepFarm) of Siptitz yonder. 'There still," reports Möllendorf, "the solid road is; unbeset hitherto, except by me Möllendorf!" Thitherward all do now hasten, Austrians, Prussians: but the Prussians are beforehand; Möllendorf is master of the Pass, deploying himself on the other side of it, and Ziethen and everybody hastening through to support him. there, and the Austrians making fierce fight in vain. The sound of which has reached Hülsen, and set Lestwitz and him in motion thither.

For the thing is vital, if we knew it. Close ahead of Möllendorf, when he is through this pass, close on Möllendorf's left, as he wheels round on the attacking Austrians, is the southwest corner of Siptitz Height. Southwest corner, highest point of it; summit and key of all that battle area; rules it all, if you get cannon thither. It hangs steepish on the southern side, over the Röhrgraben, where this MöllendorfAustrian fight begins; but it is beautifully accessible, if you bear round to the west side,-a fine saddle-shaped bit of clear ground there, in shape like the outside or seat of a saddle; Domitsch Wood the crupper part; summit of this Height the pommel, only nothing like so steep:-it is here (on the southern saddle-flap, so to speak), gradually mounting westward to the crupper-and-pommel part, that the agony now is.

And here, in utter darkness, illuminated only by the musketry and cannon blazes, there ensued two hours of stiff wrestling in its kind: not the fiercest spasm of all, but the final which decided all. Lestwitz, Hülsen, come sweeping on, led

by the sound and the fire; "beating the Prussian march, they," sharply on all their drums,-Prussian march, rat-tattan, sharply through the gloom of chaos in that manner; and join themselves, with no mistake made, to Möllendorf's, to Ziethen's left and the saddle-flap there, and fall on. The night is pitch dark, says Archenholtz; you cannot see your hand before you. Old Hülsen's bridle-horses were all shot away, when he heard this alarm, far off: no horse left; and he is old, and has his own bruises. He seated himself on a cannon; and so rides, and arrives; right welcome the sight of him, doubt not! And the fight rages still for an hour or

more.

About nine at night, all the Austrians are rolling off, eastward, eastward. Prussians goading them forward what they could (firing not quite done till ten); and that all-important pommel of the saddle is indisputably won. The Austrians settled themselves, in a kind of half-moon shape, close on the suburbs of Torgau; the Prussians in a parallel half-moon posture, some furlongs behind them. The Austrians sat but a short time; not a moment longer than was indispensable. Daun perceives that the key of his ground is gone from him; that he will have to send a second courier to Vienna. And, above all things, that he must forthwith get across the Elbe and away. Lucky for him that he has three bridges (or four, including the town bridge), and that his baggage is already all across and standing on wheels. With excellent dispatch and order Daun winds himself across,-all of him that is still coherent; and indeed, in the distant parts of the battle-field, wandering Austrian parties were admonished hitherward by the river's voice in the great darkness, -and Daun's loss in prisoners, though great, was less than could have been expected: 8,000 in all.

Till towards one in the morning, the Prussians, in their half-moon, had not learned what he was doing. About one they pushed into Torgau, and across the town bridge; found twenty-six pontoons, -all the rest packed off except these twenty-six; and did not follow further. Lacy retreated by the other or left bank of the river, to guard against attempts from that side. Next day there was pursuit of Lacy; some

prisoners and furnitures got from him, but nothing of moment: Daun and Lacy joined at Dresden; took post, as usual, behind their inaccessible Plauen Chasms. Sat there, in view of the chasing Prussians, without farther loss than this of Torgau, and of a campaign gone to water again. What an issue, for the third time!—

On Torgau-field, behind that final Prussian half-moon, there reigned, all night, a confusion which no tongue can express. Poor wounded men by the hundred and the thousand, weltering in their blood, on the cold wet ground; not surgeons or nurses, but merciless predatory sutlers, equal to murder if necessary, waiting on them and on the happier that were dead. "Unutterable!" says Archenholtz; who, though wounded, had crawled or got carried to some village near. The living wandered about in gloom and uncertainty; lucky he whose haversack was still his, and a crust of bread in it: water was a priceless luxury, almost nowhere discoverable. Prussian Generals roved about with their staff-officers, seeking to reform their battalions; to little purpose. They had grown indignant, in some instances, and were vociferously imperative and minatory; but in the dark who need mind them? -they went raving elsewhere, and, for the first time, Prussian word of command saw itself futile. Pitch darkness, bitter cold, ground trampled into mire. On Siptitz Hill there is nothing that will burn: farther back, in the Domitsch Woods, are numerous fine fires, to which Austrians and Prussians alike gather: "Peace and truce between us; to-morrow morning we will see which are prisoners, which are captors. So pass the wild hours, all hearts longing for the dawn, and what decision it will bring.

Friedrich, at Elsnig, found every hut full of wounded, and their surgeries, and miseries silent or loud. He himself took shelter in the little church; passed the night there. Busy about many things;-" using the altar," it seems, "by way of writing-table [self or secretaries kneeling, shall we fancy, on these new terms?], and the stairs of it as seat." Of the final Ziethen-Lestwitz effort he would scarcely hear the musketry or cannonade, being so far away from it. At what hour, or from whom first, he learned that the battle of Torgau had

become victory in the night-time, I know not: the anecdote books send him out in his cloak, wandering up and down before day-break; standing by the soldiers' fires; and at length, among the woods, in the faint incipiency of dawn, meeting a shadow which proves to be Ziethen himself in the body, with embraces and congratulations:-evidently mythical, though dramatic. Reach him the news soon did; and surely none could be welcomer. Headquarters change from the altar-steps in Elsnig Church to secular rooms at Torgau. Ziethen has already sped forth on the skirts of Lacy; whole army follows next day; and, on the war-theatre it is, on the sudden, a total change of scene. Conceivable to readers without the

details.

Hopes there were of getting back Dresden itself; but that, on closer view, proved unattemptable. Daun kept his Plauen Chasm, his few square miles of ground beyond; the rest of Saxony was Friedrich's, as heretofore. Loudon had tried hard on Kosel for a week; storming once, and a second time, very fiercely, Goltz being now near; but could make nothing of it; and, on wind of Goltz, went his way. The Russians, on sound of Torgau, shouldered arms, and made for Poland. Daun, for his own share, went to Vienna this winter; in need of surgery, and other things. The population there is rather disposed to be grumbly on its once heroic Fabius; wishes the Fabius were a little less cunctatory. But Imperial Majesty herself, one is proud to relate, drove out, in old Roman spirit, some miles, to meet him, her defeated, over-honored Daun, and to inquire graciously about his health, which is so important to the State.

Torgau was Daun's last battle: Daun's last battle; and, what is more, was Friedrich's last.-T. CARLYLE.