clasped tightly in her broken and lacerated right arm. The woman was
alive, but the poor child was dead, the skull having been completely
smashed and its brains scattered on its mother's bosom. As they carried
them away, the woman also expired.

In the course of a few hours great numbers of wounded persons, young and
old, were laid under the lemon-trees by the banks of the little stream
that traversed the town. Some were slightly hurt, but by far the
greater number were terribly crushed and lacerated--many of them past
all hope of recovery. To these sufferers Will Osten now gave his
undivided attention, washing and bandaging wounds, amputating limbs, and
endeavouring by every means to relieve them, and save their lives, while
to the dying he tried, in the little Spanish he knew, to convey words of
spiritual comfort, sometimes finding it impossible to do more than
whisper the name of Jesus in a dying ear, while hurriedly passing from
one to another. If earnest heart-expressive glances from eyes that were
slowly fading conveyed any evidence of good having been done, Will's
labour of love was not spent in vain.

Reader, a volume would not suffice to detail a tithe of the sights and
scenes of thrilling and dreadful interest that occurred in that small
South American town on the occasion of the earthquake. Yet, awful
though these were, they were as nothing compared with the more
stupendous calamities that have been caused by earthquakes in that land
of instability, not only in times long past, but in times so very recent
that the moss cannot yet have begun to cover, nor the weather to stain,
the tombstones and monuments of those who perished.

For many weeks Will Osten remained there tending the sick and dying.
Then he bade his kind unfortunate friends farewell, and, once more
turning his face towards the Cordillera of the Andes, resumed his
homeward journey with his faithful attendants.

There are times in the career of a man--especially of one who leads a
wandering and adventurous life--when it seems as though the events of a
lifetime were compressed into the period of a few months, or weeks, or
even days. Such, at least, was the experience of our hero while he
travelled in the equatorial regions of South America. Events succeeded
each other with such rapidity, and accumulated on each other to such an
extent, that when he looked back it appeared utterly incredible that he
and his companions had landed on the c