Dark, sinful men as they were, fresh from brutal crime, those strains touched a long silent chord in their hearts--a chord linked with the memory of a smiling village in their own distant land--with a mother's love and the innocence of childhood. Faint--faint, alas! were those memories, and Mr. Sinclair's "amen" had scarcely issued from his lips, when the eyes of the leader rested on the beautiful face of Mary Sinclair, as, pressed to the side of her father, she stretched her arms out over her dying mother, and turned her eyes imploringly on their dreaded visitors. The ruffians sprang forward with words whose meaning was happily lost to the failing sense of the terror-stricken girl. Mr. Sinclair started to his feet, and with one arm still clasped around his daughter, stood between her and the worse than murderers before him, prepared to defend her with his life. For the first time he thirsted for blood, and looked around for some weapon of destruction--but his was the abode of peace--no weapon was there. Unarmed, with that loved burden--loved at this moment even to agony, resting upon him--he stood opposed to two fierce men armed to the teeth. A father's strength in such a cause, who shall estimate?--yet, alas! his adversaries were demons, relentless in purpose, and possessed of that superhuman force which passion gives. Weary of killing, or influenced by that superstition which sometimes rules the soul from which religion is wholly banished, they did not avail themselves of their swords. With fierce threats they unclasped his arm from that senseless form, which sank instantly to the floor at his feet, and drew him across the room. They would have forced him into the parlor, but his resistance was desperate, and ere they could accomplish this, the sound of a drum beating the recall was borne faintly to their ears. Leaving his comrade to hold the wildly struggling father, the bolder ruffian turned back toward the still prostrate Mary. At that moment, before she had been polluted by a touch, the door was thrown violently back, and a tall, manly form strode through it. The gilded epaulettes and drooping feather told his rank, before the step of pride and countenance of stern command had conveyed to the mind the conviction that you stood in the presence of one accustomed to be obeyed. The man who grasped Mr. Sinclair loosened his hold and shrank cowering away. He went unnoticed, for the eye of the officer had fallen upon him who was in the act of stooping to lift Mary Sinclair from the floor. With a single spring he was at his side, and catching him by the collar of his coat, he hurled him from him with such force that he fell stunned against the farther wall. Mr. Sinclair was already bending over his daughter. As he raised her on his arm her head fell back, exposing her face, around which her dark hair swept in dense masses. Her features were of chiselled beauty, and had they been indeed of marble they could not have been more bloodless in