Humphrey stood by silent and awed.  An answering thrill was in his own heart.  He had averted his eyes from the ghastly spectacle of those charred and mangled corpses; but they turned upon them once more at this moment, and he could not marvel at his brother’s words.  He, too, had been trained to peaceable thoughts and ways.  He had hoped that there would soon be an end of these rumours of wars.  His immediate forefathers had been men of peace, and he had never known the craving after the excitement of battle.

Yet as his brother spoke there came upon him a new feeling.  He felt his arm tingling; he felt the hot blood surging through his veins.  He was conscious that were an enemy to show face at that moment between the trees of the forest, he would be ready to spring upon him like a wild beast, and rend him limb from limb without pity and without remorse.

But the Indians had made off as silently and as swiftly as they appeared.  Not a vestige of the band remained behind.  And there was work for the brothers at that moment of a different sort, and work which left its lasting mark upon the memory and even upon the nature of Humphrey Angell.

Together the brothers dug a deep grave.  Reverently they deposited in it all that was left of the mortal remains of those whom they had loved so tenderly and well:  the kindly house mother, to whose industry and thrift so much of their comfort had been due; the little, innocent, prattling children and brave little lads, who were already learning to be useful to father and mother.  None of them spared—­no pity shown to sex or age.  All ruthlessly murdered; husband and father forced to watch the horrid spectacle, himself a helpless prisoner, waiting for his doom.

Humphrey had not hitherto dared to ask the question which had been exercising him all the while—­how it was that his brother’s life had been spared.  He also wanted to know where the old man their father was; for the corpses they had laid in the grave were those of Charles’s wife and children.

Charles noted his questioning glance around when the grave had received its victims, and he pointed to the smoking ruins of the house.

“He lies there.  They bound him in his chair.  They tied the babe down in his cradle.  They set fire to the house.  Heaven send that the reek choked them before the fire touched them!  They lie yonder beneath the funeral pyre—­our venerable sire and my bonny, laughing babe!”

He stopped short, choked by a sudden rush of tears; and Humphrey, flinging down his spade, threw himself along the ground in a paroxysm of unspeakable anguish, choking sobs breaking from him, the unaccustomed tears raining down his cheeks.

The brothers wept together.  Perhaps those tears saved Charles from some severe fever of the brain.  He wept till he was perfectly exhausted, and at last his condition of prostration so far aroused Humphrey that he was forced into action.