most approved appliances of mechanism which wealth could
purchase. These now helped to enhance the wild aspect of the wreck, for
iron girders had been twisted by the action of fire into snake-like
convolutions in some places, while, in others, their ends stuck out
fantastically from the blackened walls. Beautiful furniture had been
smashed up to furnish firewood for the cooking of the meal with which
the heroic troops had refreshed themselves before leaving, while a
number of broken wine-bottles at the side of a rosewood writing-desk
with an empty bottle on the top of it and heaps of stones and pebbles
around, suggested the idea that the warriors had mingled light amusement
with sterner business. The roofs of most of the buildings had fallen
in; the window-frames, where spared by the fire, had been torn out; and
a pianoforte, which lay on its back on the grass, showed evidence of
having undergone an examination of its internal arrangements, with the
aid of the butt-ends of muskets.

"And this is the result of war!" muttered the young man, at last
breaking silence.

"Only one phase of it," replied a voice at his side, in tones of
exceeding bitterness; "you must imagine a few corpses of slaughtered men
and women and children, if you would have a perfect picture of war."

The speaker was the Peruvian, who had quietly approached to say that if
they wished to reach the next resting-place before dark it was necessary
to proceed without delay.

"But perhaps," he added, "you do not intend to go further. No doubt
this was to have been the end of your journey had all been well. It can
scarcely, I fear, be the end of it now. I do not wish to intrude upon
your sorrows, Mr Armstrong, but my business will not admit of delay. I
must push on, yet I would not do so without expressing my profound
sympathy, and offering to aid you if it lies in my power."

There was a tone and look about the man which awoke a feeling of
gratitude and confidence in the forlorn youth's heart.

"You are very kind," he said, "but it is not in the power of man to help
me. As your business is urgent you had better go and leave me. I thank
you for the sympathy you express--yet stay. You cannot advance much
further to-night, why not encamp here? There used to be a small hut or
out-house not far-off, in which my father spent much of his leisure.
Perhaps the--the--"

"Patriots!" suggested the Peruvian.

"The scoundrels," said Lawrence, "may have