ricades--the only obstacles
now to completest victory. The soldiers answered his cheerful words with
aghast and awe-struck looks; instinctively they drew back, and Raymond rode
in the front of the lines:--"By my sword I swear," he cried, "that no
ambush or stratagem endangers you. The enemy is already vanquished; the
pleasant places, the noble dwellings and spoil of the city are already
yours; force the gate; enter and possess the seats of your ancestors, your
own inheritance!"

An universal shudder and fearful whispering passed through the lines; not a
soldier moved. "Cowards!" exclaimed their general, exasperated, "give me an
hatchet! I alone will enter! I will plant your standard; and when you see
it wave from yon highest minaret, you may gain courage, and rally round
it!"

One of the officers now came forward: "General," he said, "we neither fear
the courage, nor arms, the open attack, nor secret ambush of the Moslems.
We are ready to expose our breasts, exposed ten thousand times before, to
the balls and scymetars of the infidels, and to fall gloriously for Greece.
But we will not die in heaps, like dogs poisoned in summer-time, by the
pestilential air of that city--we dare not go against the Plague!"

A multitude of men are feeble and inert, without a voice, a leader; give
them that, and they regain the strength belonging to their numbers. Shouts
from a thousand voices now rent the air--the cry of applause became
universal. Raymond saw the danger; he was willing to save his troops from
the crime of disobedience; for he knew, that contention once begun between
the commander and his army, each act and word added to the weakness of the
former, and bestowed power on the latter. He gave orders for the retreat to
be sounded, and the regiments repaired in good order to the camp.

I hastened to carry the intelligence of these strange proceedings to
Perdita; and we were soon joined by Raymond. He looked gloomy and
perturbed. My sister was struck by my narrative: "How beyond the
imagination of man," she exclaimed, "are the decrees of heaven, wondrous
and inexplicable!"

"Foolish girl," cried Raymond angrily, "are you like my valiant soldiers,
panic-struck? What is there inexplicable, pray, tell me, in so very natural
an occurrence? Does not the plague rage each year in Stamboul? What wonder,
that this year, when as we are told, its virulence is unexampled in Asia,
that it should have occasioned double havoc in that city