no soul to meet him. The stillness that everywhere prevailed was
painful, broken only by an occasional faint echo of boisterous
shout or ribald song from a distance. The town was in a dream,
and the warrior trod lightly lest he wake it in affright, for he
plainly saw that it had not slumbered long. No grass grew in the
pavement joints; recent footprints were still distinct in the
dusty thoroughfares. The visitor made his way unmolested into
work-shops and smithies; tools lay as last used; on the
carpenter's bench was the unfinished frame, on the floor were the
shavings fresh and odorous; the wood was piled in readiness
before the baker's oven; the blacksmith's forge was cold, but the
shop looked as though the occupant had just gone off for a
holiday. The gallant soldier entered gardens unchallenged by
owner, human guard, or watchful dog; he might have supposed the
people hidden or dead in their houses; but the doors were not
fastened, and he entered to explore, there were fresh ashes on
the hearth; no great accumulation of the dust of time was on
floors or furniture; the awful quiet compelled him to tread
a-tip-toe as if threading the aisles of an unoccupied cathedral.
He hastened to the graveyard, though surely the city had not been
depopulated by pestilence. No; there were a few stones newly
set, some sods freshly turned in this sacred acre of God, but
where can you find a cemetery of a living town with no such
evidence of recent interment? There were fields of heavy grain,
the bounteous harvest rotting on the ground; there were orchards
dropping their rich and rosy fruit to spoil beneath; not a hand
to gather or save.

But in a suburban corner, he came across the smoldering embers of
a barbecue fire, with fragments of flesh and other remnants of a