wards afternoon the party came in sight of a burning village situated in a rich and retired meadow. Here were assembled one troop of the miscreants, engaged in the fell work of plunder and devastation. The road traversed was not the most frequented in that region, and the main body had passed much further on in that direction. But this troop numbered about one hundred. The road was encumbered with rough wagons laden with spoil of every conceivable kind heaped hastily together. A score or more of vehicles were surrounded with a special guard. In these had been assembled a number of the younger women and grown girls from the plundered residences. They were all roughly bound to each other by the wrists and by the neck. In an open space in front of the little church a heap of church furniture and books had been collected and was at that moment blazing high. The church itself was already burning, and many bodies had been flung into it to be consumed. To this edifice the eyes of all the girls were directed; and when the flames shot up and roared, a piercing cry of lamentation and woe arose at once, for there the helpless maidens beheld the remains of parents and kindred, and some of younger brothers and sisters, consigned to incineration at the hands of savages incarnate. The agony of the girls was all the more poignant as not one hand could be lifted to dry a tear, or shade the evidences of misery behind the veil of shawl or of kerchief.
As the troop rode up, and the plunderers caught full view of the armed strangers, they at once gathered
