answered Humphrey; "I know well the road back
to the world. Nor is it a matter of more than a few days' travel to
reach the outlying townships. I have often said I would go and
visit our sisters and friends, but I have never done so. Alas that
I should go at last with such heavy tidings!"

"Heavy tidings indeed," said Fritz, with sympathy; "yet we will
avenge these treacherous murders upon those who have brought them
to pass."

"That will not restore the dead to life," said Humphrey mournfully.

"No, but it will ease the burning heart of its load of rage and
vengeance."

Humphrey's eyes turned for a moment towards his sleeping brother.
He knew how welcome would be such words to him--that is, if he
awoke from his fever dreams in the same mood as they had found him.

"And yet," said Julian thoughtfully, "we have been taught by our
fathers that brothers should live at peace together, even as we in
our valley lived long at peace with all and with one another. So
long as the memory of our venerable Father remained alive there was
all harmony and concord, and every man sought his brother's well
being as earnestly as his own."

"Can you remember the holy man?" asked Humphrey, with interest.

"No; but my father remembered him well. He was well grown towards
manhood before the venerable old man died at a great age. My
grandfather has told me story after story of him. I have been
brought up to love and revere his memory, and to hold fast the
things which he taught us. But after his death, alas! a new spirit
gradually entered into the hearts of our people. They began to grow
covetous of gain, to trade with the Indians for their own benefit,
to fall into careless and sometimes evil practices. Before my
father died he said to me that the Home of Peace was no longer the
place it once had been, and that he should like to think that I
might find a better place to live in, since I was young and had my
life before me."

"Was that long ago?"

"Just a year. My mother had died six months earlier. The
dissensions of the parent countries had begun to reach to us. We
had been French and English from the beginning, but had dwelt in
peace and brotherly goodwill for nigh upon eighty years. We had
married amongst ourselves, so that some amongst us scarce knew
whether to call themselves French or English. But for all that
disunion grew and spread. Stragglers of Louisiana found their way
to us. They brought new fashions of thought and t