his knees on the barricade wall, and his hands, with their prayer-bands,
were uplifted to heaven. Louder and louder he chanted his hymns, raising
his voice above the thundering roar of the crackling fire, the rolling
stones, and the last despairing cries of the doomed ones. The fur on his
cap, his forked beard and dangling locks were singed by the falling
cinders, and his skin scorched and blistered, yet still he chanted on.
But when at last he saw that his prayer was in vain, all at once he
sprang up, and seemed to strike at the flames with both palms; then,
spitting into the fire "pchi!" he fell down senseless.

By this time the heat was so oppressive that it was dangerous to stand
anywhere near the barricade, and even for the sake of saving a man's
life from such a horrid fate, it was impossible to venture among the
falling cinders and rolling stones. All that the few of us who had
escaped with sound limbs and bodies could do was to carry our less
fortunate, wounded or maimed fellow-travellers up into the little
watch-house.

This we did, and then came those seemingly endless minutes in which we
waited for the relief train. Once the Englishman blew the horn for the
goats, and we thought it was the whistling of the expected train. How
terribly that disappointment was felt! and what sinful, subtle, and
sophistical thoughts crowded into our heads, burdened our hearts, and
oppressed our spirits in those awful minutes!

What terrible thing had these poor victims done to deserve such fearful
punishment? What heinous crime had they committed to be sentenced to
death and destruction by such a painful, torturing process? Whose sin
was visited on the guileless heads of little infants and innocent
children who had perished in those flames? Could not they have been