d. Even then the features retained
their haughty, contemptuous expression.

He was the last man of the family with whom they had to combat, but
more than a hundred of their own band lay stretched in the court and
before the windows, covering the stairs and rooms with heaps of
bodies, and when the shouts of triumph ceased for an instant, the
groans of the wounded and the dying were heard from every side.

None now remained but women and children. When the Wallachians broke
into the castle, the widow had taken them all to the attics, leaving
the door open, that her brothers might find refuge in case they were
forced to retreat; and here the weaker members of the family awaited
the issue of the combat which was to bring them life or death,
listening breathlessly to the uproar, and endeavoring, from its
confused sounds, to determine good or evil.

At last the voices died away, and the hideous cries of the besiegers
ceased. The trembling women believed that the Wallachians had been
driven out, and, breathing more freely, each awaited with impatience
the approach of brother--husband--sons.

At last a heavy step was heard on the stairs leading to the garret.

"This is Barnabas's step!" cried the widow, joyfully, and still
holding the pistols in her hand, she ran to the door of the garret.

Instead of her expected brother, a savage form, drunken with blood,
strode towards her, his countenance burning with rage and triumph.

The widow started back, uttering a shriek of terror, and then with
that unaccountable courage of desperation, she aimed one of the
pistols at the Wallachian's breast, who instantly fell backwards on
one of his comrades, who followed close behind. The other pistol she
discharged into her own bosom.

And now we must draw a veil over the scene that followed. What
happened there must not be witnessed by human eyes.

Suffice it to say, they murdered every one, women and children, with
the most refined and brutal cruelty, and then threw their dead bodies
out of the window from which Barnabas had dashed down the iron
fragments on the besiegers' heads.

They left the old grandmother to the last, that she might witness the
extermination of her whole family. Happily for her, her eyes had
ceased to distinguish the light of sun, and ere long the light of an
eternal glory had risen upon them.

The Wallachians then dug a common grave for the bodies, and threw them
all in together. The little one, whom his par