Victoria Per ScientiamChapter 19
I had gone but twenty or thirty steps when a cannon-ball, passing a few feet from my head, struck a comrade who was walking nine or ten feet from us and severed his head from his body as clean as it could have been done by a guillotine. The headless trunk remained trembling, and still holding his gun in his hand—I stood gazing on the terrible object, unable to move hand or foot—I do not know that I breathed—how long I know not—it seemed hours, but it could not have been but minutes, it may...