"I am the resurrection and the life," but the solemn chant was this time interrupted by a shriek from Panayota. Curtis, who had resolutely turned his face from the scene of fascinating horror, looked back quickly at the sound. A slender young girl had arisen upon her elbow, and was stretching her hand imploringly toward the priest. The hand was brown and chubby, but the arm from which the flowing sleeve had slipped away, was very white and shapely. She was dying even then, but the blessed words of her mother's faith and her mother's tongue had pierced her swooning ears and she had paused at the very threshold of death for the priest's benediction. A Turkish soldier thrust her through the neck with his bayonet, and her head dropped softly upon the bosom of a dead fellow. "But this is barbarous," cried Curtis. "The civilized world shall know of this. Barbarous, I say, uncivilized--you an officer? A gentleman? Bah!" "But Monsieur is too violent and hasty," replied Kostakes. "Irregularities happen in all armies. The man shall be punished." "If he is to be shot," said the American, "please put me in the firing squad!" Emerging from the pass, they came to a steep, wooded ravine, and their path led through an aisle of tall pine trees. The feet of the soldiers made no noise on the carpet of fallen spines. They found four more dead Turks and picked up two that were wounded. After about an hour of forced marching the ravine spread out into a beautiful sunlit valley, whereon the new plowed ground lay in patches of rich brown, terra-cotta and black loam. The vines were just putting forth their pale green sprouts. The laborers had been surprised in the act of heaping conical mounds about the roots, and an occasional discarded mattock betokened hasty flight. Poppies lifted everywhere their slender-stemmed, scarlet beakers--such glasses in shape as are fit to hold the vintage of the Rhine. The little slopes were set thick with candelabras of the ghostly asphodel, whose clusters of pale-pinkish, waxen flowers seemed indeed to belong to regions where the dear sun is but a memory. Scattering fruit trees, in the full revel and glory of their snowy bloom called to each other with perfume. It was some time after noon now, but they stopped neither to eat nor rest. Curtis' foot began to pain him fearfully, but he made no sign. In the midst of such desolation, he felt pain to be a trivial thing. The vines were here, but where were the toilers? The pear trees were in bloom, but where were the laughing children, the wives and maidens with wine and bread for the midday feast? Once they passed a shock-headed boy of fourteen, or possibly younger, lying dead in a vineyard, with his mattock beside him, and later in the day they came upon a plow in the unfinished furrow. One of the oxen was dead, and the other great beast had struggled to his feet and stood patiently beside the body of his mate.