nd, amid the
enthusiastic cheers of his comrades.

"I had walked nearly another mile, when almost in front of me, and
perhaps a hundred yards away, I saw a remarkable sight that I did not at
first understand. The country here was crossed by a winding river
running in a general way at right angles to my line of progress. At the
right, near at hand, and on the nearer bank of the river, lay a little
city, perhaps half the size of Arite, with its back up against a hill.

"What first attracted my attention was that from a dark patch across the
river which seemed to be woods, pebbles appeared to pop up at intervals,
traversing a little arc perhaps as high as my knees, and falling into
the city. I watched for a moment and then I understood. There was a
siege in progress, and the catapults of the Malites were bombarding the
city with rocks.

"I went up a few steps closer, and the pebbles stopped coming. I stood
now beside the city, and as I bent over it, I could see by the battered
houses the havoc the bombardment had caused. Inert little figures lay in
the streets, and I bent lower and inserted my thumb and forefinger
between a row of houses and picked one up. It was the body of a woman,
partly mashed. I set it down again hastily.

"Then as I stood up, I felt a sting on my leg. A pebble had hit me on
the shin and dropped at my feet. I picked it up. It was the size of a
small walnut--a huge bowlder six feet or more in diameter it would have
been in Lylda's eyes. At the thought of her I was struck with a sudden
fit of anger. I flung the pebble violently down into the wooded patch
and leaped over the river in one bound, landing squarely on both feet in
the woods. It was like jumping into a patch of ferns.

"I stamped about me for a moment until a large part of the woods was
crushed down. Then I bent over and poked around with my finger.
Underneath the tangled wreckage of tiny-tree trunks, lay numbers of the
Malites. I must have trodden upon a thousand or more, as one would stamp
upon insects.

"The sight sickened me at first, for after all, I could not look upon
them as other than men, even though they were only the length of my
thumb-nail. I walked a few steps forward, and in all directions I could
see swarms of the little creatures running. Then the memory of my coming
departure from this world with Lylda, and my promise to the king to rid
his land once for all from these people, made me feel again that they,
like vermin