desolation so awful.

Humphrey stood still and silent the while, like one spellbound. He
scarcely knew his brother in this moment of passionate despair and
fury. Charles had been a silent, placable man all his life through.
Born and bred in the Quaker settlement, till he had taken to the
life of the forest he had been a man of quiet industry and toil
rather than a fighter or a talker. A peaceful creed had been his,
and he had perhaps never before raised a hand in anger against a
fellow creature.

This made the sudden wild and passionate outburst the more strange
and awful to Humphrey. It was almost as though Charles was no
longer the brother he had known all these years, but had been
transformed into a different being by the swift and fearful
calamity which had swept down upon them during these past few
hours.

"I will avenge--I swear it! As they have done, so shall it be done
unto them. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life--is not that
written in the Scriptures? The avenger of blood shall follow and
overtake. His hand shall not spare, neither his eye pity. The
evildoer shall be rooted out of the land. His place shall be no
more found. Even as they have done, so shall it be done unto them."

He stopped, and suddenly raised his clasped hands to heaven. A
torrent of words broke from his lips.

"O God, Thou hast seen, Thine eyes have beheld. If it had been an
open enemy that had done this thing, then could I perchance have