Faber knelt and turned the dead man over. He felt his pulse, and even laid his head upon his chest to listen for the beating of his heart. There had been horrors enough in Ranovica this day; but they had to do with a strange and savage people, of whom he knew nothing. He remembered that this man had taken his mother to America when she had no other friend in the world. Had he not come to Europe to reward him for what he had done as few have been rewarded, whatever the service? And this was the end of it--this prone figure, still and fearful--this, and the Turks who looked down upon the scene with Oriental indifference--this, and the sentry who leered behind their backs and made no attempt to hide his satisfaction. Faber caught the fellow grinning, and recognized him for one of the men who had turned on him earlier in the day when Paleologue floored the officer. The rifle in his hand had come from the arsenal at Charleston. Surely destiny spoke loudly enough here. He borrowed a burned and tattered cloak from one of the dead in the gutter, and covered his friend's face reverently. Where to go, what to do next, he knew not; nor in what manner he should seek Maryska. The truth had gripped him with fingers of iron. This was war--and of war was he not the disciple? III The Turks left the village about three in the after-noon. It was understood that they had other work of the kind, but more to the northward, and removed from the observant eye of their neighbours, the Montenegrins, who would surely avenge this day. Before they left, they were able to restore to Faber the mules which had brought his party to Ranovica. The beasts had been taken up the hillside during the conflagration, and would have been led much further afield but for the Pasha's desire to curry favour with the American. He knew that this was the man who made the rifles with which the infidel dogs must be destroyed; urgent messages from Constantinople had warned him to show deference to so useful an ally, and he obeyed his instructions with a display of manners quite pleasing. It was otherwise when the dead artist and his daughter were mentioned. Constantinople had said nothing about them, and it really seemed to Faber that the flat-faced, good-humoured Alussein could be a genius of understanding or the dullest blockhead at his pleasure.