But fortune, which at first crowned the efforts of Galeazzo with success, at length forsook him. In an evil hour he fell into a snare that had been laid to entrap him: his men were either killed or dispersed; and wounded almost to death, he returned to his own estate to aid the flight of his family to the mountains. Almost fainting with the loss of blood, he arrived at the midnight hour on the borders of his vineyards. But the hand of the destroyer had been speedy; the red hue of the crackling flames streamed upon his sight, and overpowered with agony and weakness, he sank to the ground behind a hedge of myrtle that screened him from observation. Insensibility would have been a blessing, but it came not; for though unable to rise from the spot where he had fallen, his mind was still acutely alive to all that passed within his view. He saw his little innocents butchered by the murderous hands of the inebriated troops; he saw his beautiful wife struggling in vain against the brutal violence of the soldiery; he beheld the bodies of his children-- “Their silver skins laced with their golden blood,” thrown among the burning embers of their once happy home; his soul sickened at the spectacle, and his senses forsook him. At length the ruthless passions of the troops were satiated; demolition ceased, for there was nothing more to destroy, and they quitted the work of their impious hands to immolate other victims, and to offer fresh sacrifices at the shrine of Napoleon’s ambition. Morning dawned upon the wretched sufferer, who awoke once more to sense and misery; yet all around was calm, except when the solemn stillness was broken by the piercing death-shriek of some poor wretch in his mortal agony, or the distant discharge of artillery, which told a tale of slaughter. Still serenely beautiful was the clear blue sky, tinged with the golden radiance of the sun; and the blushing flowers that had drunk the moistening dew breathed forth their odours to the morning breeze, blending the soul of sweetness with the cooling winds. But the song of the peasant, as he early plied his wonted task among the purple clusters of the vine, was heard no more. The very birds, scared by the blackening smoke that curled towards the heavens and like the blood of Abel cried from the ground for vengeance, had left the spot where desolation triumphed. Life was rapidly passing away from the wretched Galeazzo; his wounds had burst out afresh in his struggles to rise, and he felt approaching dissolution spread its film over his eyes. Still he continued fearfully sensible of his situation, and waited for the hour when his mortal agony should cease.