indomitable.  The conflict between two such powers arrested the attention of all Russia.  Mstislaf made the most extensive preparations for the attack upon the Novgorodians, and they, in their turn, were equally energetic in preparations for the defense.  The army marched from Moscow, and following the valley of the Masta, entered the spacious province of Novgorod.  They entered the region, not like wolves, not like men, but like demons.  The torch was applied to every hut, to every village, to every town.  They amused themselves with tossing men, women and children upon their camp-fires, glowing like furnaces.  The sword and the spear were too merciful instruments of death.  The flames of the burning towns blazed along the horizon night after night, and the cry of the victims roused the Novgorodians to the intensest thirst for vengeance.

With the sweep of utter desolation, Mstislaf approached the city, and when his army stood before the walls, there was behind him a path, leagues in width, and two hundred miles in length, covered with ruins, ashes and the bodies of the dead.  It was the 25th of February, 1170.  The city was immediately summoned to surrender.  The Novgorodians appalled by the fate of Kief, and by the horrors which had accompanied the march of Mstislaf, took a solemn oath that they would struggle to the last drop of blood in defense of their liberties.  The clergy in procession, bearing the image of the Virgin in their arms, traversed the fortifications of the city, and with prayers, hymns and the most imposing Christian rites, inspired the soldiers with religious enthusiasm.  The Novgorodians threw themselves upon their knees, and in simultaneous prayer cried out, with the blending of ten thousand voices, “O God! come and help us, come and help us.”  Thus roused to frenzy, with the clergy chanting hymns of battle and pleading with Heaven for success, with the image of the Virgin contemplating their deeds, the soldiers rushed from behind their ramparts upon the foe.  Death was no longer dreaded.  The only thought of every man was to sell his life as dearly as possible.

Such an onset of maniacal energy no mortal force could stand.  The soldiers of Mstislaf fell as the waving grain bows before the tornado.  Their defeat was utter and awful.  Mercy was not thought of.  Sword and javelin cried only for blood, blood.  The wretched Mstislaf in dismay fled, leaving two thirds of his army in gory death; and, in his flight, he met that chastisement which his cruelties merited.  He had to traverse a path two hundred miles in length, along which not one field of grain had been left undestroyed; where every dwelling was in ashes, and no animal life whatever had escaped his ravages.  Starvation was his doom.  Every rod of the way his emaciated soldiers dropped dead in their steps.  Famine also with all its woes reigned in Novgorod.  Under these circumstances, the two parties consented to peace, the Novgorodians retaining their independence, but accepting a brother of the grand prince Andre to succeed their own prince, who was then at the point of death.