many are missing?"

"We were nineteen, here, before you came," one of the men replied.

"Then there are six missing," John said. "We will not give them up.
Some may have made their way straight up the mountain, fearing to
be seen as they passed the ends of the open spaces. Some may have
made their way, down the opposite slope, to the other arm of the
river. But, even if all are killed, we need not repine. They have
died as they wished--taking vengeance upon the Romans.

"It has been a glorious success. More than half the Roman camp is
assuredly destroyed; and they must have lost a prodigious quantity
of stores, of all kinds.

"Who are missing?"

He heard the names of those absent.

"I trust we may see some of them, yet," he said; "but if not,
Jonas, tomorrow, shall carry to their friends the news of their
death. They will be wept; but their parents will be proud that
their sons have died in striking so heavy a blow upon our
oppressors. They will live, in the memory of their villages, as men
who died doing a great deed; and women will say:

"'Had all done their duty, as they did, the Romans would never have
enslaved our nation.'

"We will wait another half hour, here; but I fear that no more will
join us, for the Romans are drawn up all along the line where,
alone, a descent could be made in the valley."

"Then how did you escape, John," Jonas asked; "and how is it that
you were not here, before? Several of those who were in the line
beyond you have returned."

"I waited till I hoped that all had passed," John said. "Each one
who ran past the open spaces added to the danger--for the Romans
beyond could not but notice them, as they passed the spaces lighted
by the flames--and it was my duty, as leader, to be the last to
go."

"Six of those who were beyond you have joined us," one of the men
said. "The other six are those that are missing."

"That is what I feared," John answered. "I felt sure that those
behind me would have got safely away, before the Romans recovered
from their first confusion. The danger was, of course, greater in
proportion to the distance from the edge of the slope."

"But how did you get through, John, since you say that all escape
is cut off?"

John related how he had slain the Roman soldier, and escaped with
his armor; and the recital raised him still higher in the
estimation of his followers--for the modern feeling, that it is
right to kill even the bitterest enemy only in fair