sounded the terrible command:

"No quarter! No quarter! No quarter!"

A dreadful moment succeeded when the air resounded with the screams of
wounded and dying men, the agony of the conquered. The blockhouse had
fallen.

A cry of anguish went up from the women. A cry so terrible, so
heart-breaking in its bereavement that Peggy and Sally covered their
ears to shut out the awfulness of its desolation. This was war in its
most fearful aspect. War, civil war, that knows neither mercy nor
compassion. War, the Juggernaut that rides to victory on a highway of
women's hearts, watered by women's tears. O Liberty! thou art as the
breath of life to man. Without thee he were a base, ignoble thing! We
cannot set thy metes and bounds, for thou art thine own eternal law.
Thou art the light by which man claims kinship with his Maker. And
yet, at what price art thou bought? At what price! At what price!

The tragedy darkened.

A tiny tongue of flame darted up from one corner of the doomed fort.
At a little distance another showed luridly. Presently the whole
structure was a mass of flames. Trussed like fowls, the prisoners were
taken to the oyster boats on the river, and thrown in unceremoniously.
The barges and scows not wanted by the conquerors were scuttled and
sunk, or fired and burned to the water. Then, with shouts of triumph,
the yelling horde of British and refugees came toward the ill-fated
village.

As though paralyzed with fear the terrified women waited their
approach. Of what use to flee? All that made life dear was about
them. That gone, what was left? And so they looked on in the numbness
of despair while their houses were stripped and the torch applied.
House after house burst into flame, and pitchy clouds of vapor
obscured everything. Suddenly the women were galvanized into action as
the enemy approached the house near which they stood. It was the only
one remaining. As though animated by one impulse they turned and fled
into the forest.

Peggy found herself running with the others. In all her short life she
had never been so possessed by blind, unreasoning terror as she was at
that moment. When at length tree and sky, and objects resumed their
normal relation, she found that she and Sally were clinging to each
other, and sobbing convulsively. And Sally was saying something. Peggy
could not comprehend at first, but presently the words came to her
clearly:

"We must go back, Peggy. We must go back."

"Why?" w