Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/268

254 that had fallen upon countless centuries of its past. Yet the whole glory and entrancement of the perfect peace were for the moment ruined, for out on the snow there was a hungry crowd of starving souls, crying, I doubt not, for bread; and those to whom they cried answered them with their muskets, dyeing the glittering white with many a red stream, bringing many a hungered wretch to his last sleep in the frozen night of death. And out over the silence of the hills the cries for mercy rang as in bitterness to God, the dreadful cries of the weak, down trodden [sic] beneath the feet of those who knew not God, the last scream of perishing souls, the sobs of strong men in their agony. In vain I closed my ears, shut out the sight from my eyes. The picture came to me again and again, the sound of the voices would not be hushed, and in turn I cried to Black— "For God's sake, help those men, if you have anything but the instincts of a brute in you!"

He shrugged his shoulders defiantly. "What am I to do?" he asked.

"Stop the devil's work, and give the men bread, as I've just given you your life!"

There was a pause before he answered me, and I could see that an old nature and a new impulse fought within him. He did not give me any direct answer to my earnest appeal, but he snatched a rifle from a case and said— "Take that pistol, and come on; you've fooled