true) which the world, and not the keen eye of imagination only, has actually witnessed with its own eyes. His description is undisguised fiction, mine undeniable truth. And if my readers are displeased with such revolting tragedies, what do they say to the narratives of slaughter, and shocking cannibalism, with which the world is now being flooded?
I looked around to see the cause of the increase of light, and, lo! some twenty or more of the castles and palaces on all sides of the square were wrapped in raging fire. The weird flames shot up into the black and hideous space above, and lost themselves in the dense obscurity of clouds of inky smoke. Now and again dreadful explosions of powder magazines rent the air, and the roofs and walls of many of the castles were hurled out with violence on the heads of the combatants.
While I gazed on this alarming spectacle, I became aware of a sharp pain at the back of my neck, very like the sting a of a scorpion. Placing my hand hastily on the affected part, I felt a clammy cuttle-fish finger pressing upon it, and looking round in the greatest terror, I beheld the larrikin fiend, Astoragus, sitting in the dickey contemplating the battle as gravely and solemnly as a judge, I instantly gave utterance to a loud roar of pain and rage. The Demon was startled at the sound, and turning, saw the injured innocent, his thoughts apparently far from doing any mischief. Without hesitation he seized him round the body with his boa-constrictor tail before he had time to escape, and roughly hurled him out of the chariot right over my head. He fell kicking amongst the poor negroes, who were still harnessed to the carriage, and they, struck with a mortal panic, started away at a furious gallop. In vain the Demon thundered orders to them to stop, and swore the most frightful oaths I ever heard; they only flew the faster,
