"Home! We Sarmatians have none like yours, you patient, plough-guiding men, which you occupy beside the immovable hearthstone, rooted to the earth. Our home is the steppe, the broad, free steppe, which can be measured neither by the eye nor the steed. Ah! it is beautiful." The man's eyes sparkled, and suddenly Zercho, usually so dull and taciturn, was overwhelmed by an enthusiasm which, to the listeners' astonishment, gave his words wings. "Yes, it is more beautiful, more magnificent than all the Roman and German lands I have ever seen. When, in the spring, the sun has kissed away the last snow; when the moor laughs; when the steppe blossoms; when by day hundreds of hawks scream at once in the blue air, and the wild stallions, which have never borne a rider, neigh so terribly and dash so furiously past the tents, trampling over everything in their path as they pursue the trembling mares, till the heart of the boldest man might quiver with fear and yet also with joy at sight of such fierce, uncurbed strength! And oh, the nights, when the thousands and thousands of heavenly spirits look down from above, far, far more star-gods, shining far more brightly than here with you; and when, in the darkness, the cranes and wild-swans pass like thick clouds--for there are so many that they cast shadows in the moonlight--like resonant, clanging clouds high in the air! "Doubtless the steppes of Sarmatia are more beautiful than any other lands and the lives of the Jazyges on their swift steeds are freer than other lives. But Zercho--Zercho no longer suits the steppe. I am like the bird, the wild bird of the moor, which boys keep for years in a small cage where it cannot spread its wings. If it is set free, nay, flung into the air, it drops down and lies still; it can no longer fly, it has forgotten how. So, toiling with the plough for many years and staying in one place has fettered me. Zercho can no longer ride as the Jazyges ride, vying with the wind; Zercho can no longer sleep every night on a different patch of earth and, if there be nothing better to eat, catch locusts and lizards. I am used to grain and bread, the fruit of the lands I have ploughed myself. I have no wish to leave them. And my family? I saw them all--all six--die before my eyes in one night, the terrible night when the faithless Romans--those slayers of the people, those murderous wolves!--suddenly attacked our encampment with the round, straw-thatched huts, by the Tibiscus, during an armistice. The bright blaze of the hurdles lighted them well in their work of slaughter. My father killed, my mother hurled into the flames of the straw tent, my two sisters--oh, horrible!--tortured to death, my two brothers leaping into the stream which flowed red with blood! And I--I saw it all, stretched before the hut, my head cleft by a sword stroke, defenceless, motionless. So I lay the whole starlit night, asking the thousand gods above there: 'Why? Why? Why?' But, when day dawned, the