The Jew, partly stunned by a wound in the forehead from the splinter
of a barrel, and partly in despair at the destruction of his
property, came to the entrance of the store, seating himself among
the rubbish. Other plunderers speedily followed the example of the
marauding soldiers, but he made no attempt to stop them as they
walked past him. My grandfather, passing at the time on his way
home, was horrified at the sight of him. Flour from a splintered
barrel had been scattered over his face, and blood from the wound
in his forehead, trickling down, had clotted it on his cheeks and
scanty beard, giving him an aspect at once appalling and disgusting.
His daughter had waited at the door of the Fives' Court till she
saw Owen come forth in safety, and had then availed herself of
the protection of the Major as far as her own home. Shrieking at
the dismal sight, she sprang forward and threw herself before the
Jew, casting her arms around him. This seemed to rouse him. He
arose--looked back into the store; and then, as if goaded by the
sight of the wreck into intolerable anguish, he lifted his clenched
hands above his head, uttering a sentence of such fearful blasphemy,
that a devout Spaniard, who was emerging from the store with some
plunder, struck him on the mouth. He never heeded the blow, but
continued to rave, till, suddenly overcome by loss of blood and
impotent rage, he dropt senseless on the ground.
My grandfather, calling some soldiers of his regiment who were
passing, desired them to convey him to the hospital at the South
Barracks, and, again taking the terrified and weeping Esther under
his protection, followed to see the unfortunate Jew cared for.
At the various parades that day Mr Bags was reported absent, being
in fact engaged in pursuits of a much more interesting nature than
his military duties. A vast field of interprise was opened to him
and other adventurous spirits, of which they did not fail to avail
themselves, in the quantity of property of all kinds abandoned by
the owners, in houses and shops where locks and bolts were no longer
a protection; and although the firing, which ceased for an hour
or two in the middle of the day, was renewed towards evening and
continued with great fury, the ardour of acquisition by no means
abated.
About midnight a sentry on the heights of Rosia (the name given
to a portion of the rugged cliffs towards the south and near the
hospital) observed, in the gloom, a figure lurking about one of the
batteries, and challenged it. Receiving no answer, he threatened to
fire, when Bags came forward reluctantly, with a bundle in his hand.
"Hush, Bill," said Bags, on finding the sentry was a personal
friend--"don't make a row: it's only me, Bags--Tongs, you know," he
added, to insure his recognition.
"What the devil are you doing there, you fool?" asked his friend in
a surly tone--"don't you know the picquet's after you?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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