A host of ragged women, vultures of prey, ranged over
the tepid bodies of the dead, stripping one man bare, de-
spoiling another, robbing from a third his dearest pos-
sessions.

Amid clouds of white rifle smoke and the dense black
vapors of flaming buildings, houses with wide doors and
windows bolted shone in the sunlight. The streets seemed
to be piled upon one another, or wound picturesquely
about fantastic corners, or set to scale the hills nearby.
Above the graceful cluster of houses, rose the lithe
columns of a warehouse and the towers and cupola of the
church.

"How beautiful the revolution! Even in its most bar-
barous aspect it is beautiful," Solis said with deep feel-
ing. Then a vague melancholy seized him, and speaking
low:

"A pity what remains to do won't be as beautiful! We
must wait a while, until there are no men left to fight
on either side, until no sound of shot rings through the
air save from the mob as carrion-like it falls upon the
booty; we must wait until the psychology of our race, con-
densed into two words, shines clear and luminous as a
drop of water: Robbery! Murder! What a colossal failure
we would make of it, friend, if we, who offer our enthu-
siasm and lives to crush a wretched tyrant, became the
builders of a monstrous edifice holding one hundred or
two hundred thousand monsters of exactly the same sort.