Midnight came,--a dark, dreary, cold, starless midnight, and I was ordered to visit all the outposts to see that the sentinels were alert upon their duty. The dead bodies of those who had fallen in battle remained unburied. I had looked upon many a bleeding and mangled form during the day; I had seen many a poor wretch writhing in the last pang of mortal agony; I had gazed with a sort of desperate wildness on the convulsive contortions which expiring nature had left upon the countenance; and now, in the stillness and solitude of night, to traverse the spot where they lay in promiscuous heaps as they had fallen, my very soul was harrowed up! I would not disobey, and I did not dare to ask for attendance lest my secret should transpire. Alone then I departed, every nerve agitated with the commotion that shook my trembling frame. Alone I took my way to the nearest outpost, often starting aside as some stiffened corpse lay stretched across my path. The hollow moaning of the waves breaking against the rugged rocks, came with a fearful sound upon the wind, which rushed past in hurried gusts, and now and then a half-stifled groan burst from some poor creature who yet survived the carnage and was recovering sensibility. I had reached about halfway to my first place of destination, when my faculties became in a great measure paralysed, on hearing something behind which emitted a strange and unnatural noise. I determined to face it, and turned round for that purpose. The atmosphere was dense and hazy, enveloping the earth in darkness; but amidst the gloom, a most horrible figure kept rising up to more than mortal height, and then again sinking to scarcely half the stature of a man; two immense projections issued from its hideously formed head, and a pair of burning eyes glared with vengeful fierceness upon me: all my old feelings returned; dismay crept upon my spirit; and making one desperate effort, I ran with amazing rapidity from this terrific object. But alas! I had not run far, when I stumbled over a dead body, and fell in the midst of several others. I stretched out my hands to assist me in rising, and they rested upon the cold clammy face of a corpse! Once more upon my feet, I looked round; the monster was close to me, rising and falling as it had done before, and again I bounded away without knowing whither. A building presented itself, which I hoped was one of the outposts, and hastily entering it, I fell about twelve feet into a space below, but sustained no bodily injury as the floor was covered with piles of seal skins. Here, in thick darkness and insensibility, I lay for several hours, when I was accidentally discovered by a party who had clandestinely left the main-body to seek for plunder, and were attracted to the spot by seeing an enormous _he-goat_ near the entrance to the building. By the light of the lantern which they carried I was readily recognised, and soon rescued from my uncomfortable situation. The fresh air and human voices