That this fierce implacable Moslem had been right in his conjecture I soon had ample—ay, terrible—proof. In every mile, even on the rugged track itself, as I neared the spot from which I write, the horrible evidences of deadly carnage multiplied and repeated themselves. Disembowelled horses, broken limbers, little mounds of dead, fallen one on another, their still, calm, white faces in cruel contrast to the extravagant distortion of their scattered and twisted limbs; and everywhere traces of that ruthless hatred vowed by the Turk to his hereditary enemy. Hideous featureless corpses stared at me out of eyeless sockets from the roadside, their hands uplifted and bloody, showing that wounded, not dead Russians, had been thus maltreated; occasionally a movement, slight though perceptible, caused me to dismount, eager to aid some mutilated sufferer, but all to no purpose—the Turks had done their work too well. As I advanced, the spectacle of these recurrent horrors increased in its revelations of barbarism and malignant cruelty. The number of Turkish dead diminished step by step, as that of the Russians augmented, and by the time I reached this place I had had such a surfeit of ghoul-feasting (for the eye) as I envy no man. While talking to Salem Bey Agris—the gentleman to whose good offices I am indebted for the conveyance of this hurried despatch, at least, as far as Erzeroum—a poor horse hobbled up, browsing its way along the thin coarse grass which covers the bank on which I was seated. Something in the animal’s movements attracting my attention, I looked up and noticed to my infinite horror that the poor brute, which was still saddled and bridled, had but three legs—the off fore leg being from the shoulder downwards nothing but a sliver of white bone splintered to a pencil point. Horror-struck, I seized my revolver—my first thought being to put the poor creature out of its pain. But as it browsed on placidly, seemingly indifferent, I called Salem Bey’s attention to its condition. ‘Poor horse,’ he said (and note that he had surveyed mutilated Russians with placid indifference), ‘a suffering animal, indeed, tears the breast, but I have seen, only two hours since, a sight far more heartrending than this. I was charging with my squadron a troop of Cossacks. It chanced that a shell burst right over the first line, and, killing two troopers, tore away the whole muzzle of one of their horses. All was destroyed in the poor beast, right up to the eyes, and you might have supposed it would fall dead at once. Nothing of the kind. It held its place in the ranks, spouting torrents of blood and foam from its ghastly shattered head, until, fortunately, some stray Russian bullet laid it low. Until then, I will own,’ he added, ‘I was afraid for my men.’ The Bey, leaving me to digest this tale, strode away in the dusk to get his horse. ‘Where is your army?’ I have shouted to him, and his reply is: ‘_Bilémem_ (I do not know). INSHALLAH, it has gone to KARS.’