ents and positions in such a way that
they had the appearance of attacking when in reality they were effecting
a prudent retreat; rapidly concealing themselves among the earth on the
approach of an overwhelming force; becoming openly possessed with the
prophetic vision of an assured final victory whenever it could be no
longer concealed that matters were becoming very desperate indeed; and
gaining an effective respite when all other ways of extrication were
barred against them by the stratagem of feigning that they were other
than those whom they had at first appeared to be.

In the meantime the adventure was not progressing pleasantly for those
chiefly concerned at home. With the earliest tidings of repulse it was
discovered that in the haste of embarkation the wrong persons had been
sent, all those who were really the fittest to command remaining behind,
and many of these did not hesitate to write to the printed papers,
resolutely admitting that they themselves were in every way better
qualified to bring the expedition to a successful end, at the same time
skilfully pointing out how the disasters which those in the field
had incurred could easily have been avoided by acting in a precisely
contrary manner.

In the emergency the most far-seeing recommended a more unbending policy
of extermination. Among these, one in particular, a statesman bearing
an illustrious name of two-edged import, distinguished himself by the
liberal broad-mindedness of his opinions, and for the time he even did
not flinch from making himself excessively unpopular by the wide
and sweeping variety of his censure. "We are confessedly a barbarian
nation," fearlessly declared this unprejudiced person (who, although
entitled by hereditary right to carry a banner on the field of battle,
with patriotic self-effacement preferred to remain at home and encourage
those who were fighting by pointing out their inadequacy to the task and
the extreme unlikelihood of their ever accomplishing it), "and in order
to achieve our purpose speedily it is necessary to resort to the methods
of barbarism." The most effective measure, as he proceeded to explain
with well-thought-out detail, would be to capture all those least
capable of resistance, concentrate them into a given camp, and then
at an agreed signal reduce the entire assembly to what he termed, in
a passage of high-minded eloquence, "a smoking hecatomb of women and
children."

His advice was pointed with a