like demons. The torch was applied to every hut, to every village, to
every town. They amused themselves with tossing men, women and
children upon their camp-fires, glowing like furnaces. The sword and
the spear were too merciful instruments of death. The flames of the
burning towns blazed along the horizon night after night, and the cry
of the victims roused the Novgorodians to the intensest thirst for
vengeance.

With the sweep of utter desolation, Mstislaf approached the city, and
when his army stood before the walls, there was behind him a path,
leagues in width, and two hundred miles in length, covered with ruins,
ashes and the bodies of the dead. It was the 25th of February, 1170.
The city was immediately summoned to surrender. The Novgorodians
appalled by the fate of Kief, and by the horrors which had accompanied
the march of Mstislaf, took a solemn oath that they would struggle to
the last drop of blood in defense of their liberties. The clergy in
procession, bearing the image of the Virgin in their arms, traversed
the fortifications of the city, and with prayers, hymns and the most
imposing Christian rites, inspired the soldiers with religious
enthusiasm. The Novgorodians threw themselves upon their knees, and in
simultaneous prayer cried out, with the blending of ten thousand
voices, "O God! come and help us, come and help us." Thus roused to
frenzy, with the clergy chanting hymns of battle and pleading with
Heaven for success, with the image of the Virgin contemplating their
deeds, the soldiers rushed from behind their ramparts upon the foe.
Death was no longer dreaded. The only thought of every man was to sell
his life as dearly as possible.

Such an onset of maniacal energy no mortal force could stand. The
soldiers of Mstislaf fell as the waving grain bows before the tornado.
Their defeat was utter and awful. Mercy was not thought of. Sword and
javelin cried only for blood, blood. The wretched Mstislaf in dismay
fled, leaving two thirds of his army in gory death; and, in his
flight, he met that chastisement which his cruelties merited. He had
to traverse a path two hundred miles in length, along which not one
field of grain had been left undestroyed; where every dwelling was in
ashes, and no animal life whatever had escaped his ravages. Starvation
was his doom. Every rod of the way his emaciated soldiers dropped dead
in their steps. Famine also with all its woes reigned in Novgorod.
Under these circumsta