were slain even on its steps. If, as antique traditions tell us, no
grass will grow where the blood of martyrs has been shed, there should be
a barren spot, to this very day, on the site of that desecrated altar.

While the blood was still plashing from step to step, the leader of the
rangers seized a torch, and applied it to the drapery of the shrine. The
flame and smoke arose, as from a burnt-sacrifice, at once illuminating
and obscuring the whole interior of the chapel,--now hiding the dead
priests in a sable shroud, now revealing them and their slayers in one
terrific glare. Some already wished that the altar-smoke could cover the
deed from the sight of Heaven. But one of the rangers--a man of
sanctified aspect, though his hands were bloody--approached the captain.

"Sir," said he, "our village meeting-house lacks a bell, and hitherto we
have been fain to summon the good people to worship by beat of drum.
Give me, I pray you, the bell of this popish chapel, for the sake of the
godly Mr. Rogers, who doubtless hath remembered us in the prayers of the
congregation, ever since we began our march. Who can tell what share of
this night's good success we owe to that holy man's wrestling with the
Lord?"

"Nay, then," answered the captain, "if good Mr. Rogers hath holpen our
enterprise, it is right that he should share the spoil. Take the bell
and welcome, Deacon Lawson, if you will be at the trouble of carrying it
home. Hitherto it hath spoken nothing but papistry, and that too in the
French or Indian gibberish; but I warrant me, if Mr. Rogers consecrate it
anew, it will talk like a good English and Protestant bell."

So Deacon Lawson and half a score of his townsmen took down the bell,
suspended it on a pole, and bore it away on their sturdy shoulders,