For some time I resolved within myself not to look back; the discouragement was too great; but the impulse to do so became all the greater, and the only means of resisting was by counting the strokes, and determining not to turn my head before I had made a thousand. The monotony of this last, and the ceaseless effort to advance, threw me into a kind of dreamy state, wherein mere mechanical effort remained. A few vague impressions are all that remain to me of what followed. I remember the sound of the morning guns from the fleet; I remember, too, the hoisting of the French standard at daybreak on the fort of the Mole: I have some recollection of a bastion crowded with people, and hearing shouts and cheers, like voices of welcome and encouragement; and then a whole fleet of small boats issuing from the harbor, as if by one impulse; and then there comes a bright blaze of light over one incident, for I saw myself, dripping and almost dead, lifted on the shoulders of strong men, and carried along a wide street filled with people. I was in Genoa! CHAPTER XXXIV. "GENOA IN THE SIEGE." Up a straight street, so steep and so narrow that it seemed a stair, with hundreds of men crowding around me, I was borne along. Now, they were sailors who carried me; now, white-bearded grenadiers, with their bronzed bold faces; now, they were the wild-looking Faquini of the Mole, with long-tasseled red caps, and gaudy sashes round their waists. Windows were opened on either side as we went, and eager faces protruded to stare at me; and then there were shouts and cries of triumphant joy bursting forth at every moment, amidst which I could hear the ever-recurring words--"Escaped from the English fleet." By what means, or when, I had exchanged my dripping trowsers of coarse sailcloth for the striped gear of our republican mode--how one had given me his jacket, another a cap, and a third a shirt--I knew not; but there I was, carried along in triumph, half fainting from exhaustion, and almost maddened by excitement. That I must have told something of my history--heaven knows how incoherently and unconnectedly--is plain enough, for I could hear them repeating one to the other--"Had served with Moreau's corps in the Black Forest;" "A hussar of the Ninth;" "One of Humbert's fellows;" and so on. As we turned into a species of "Place," a discussion arose as to whither they should convey me. Some were for the "Cavalry Barracks," that I might be once more with those who resembled my old comrades. Others, more considerate, were for the hospital; but a staff officer decided the question by stating that the general was at that very moment receiving the report in the church of the Anunziata, and that he ought to see me at once.