How pleasant to
think of them building their houses, tending their flocks, taking care
of the little ones, waiting upon their good queen, in the practice of
all those virtues that make a community happy and prosperous! But, alas!
this very day the chieftains of a neighboring tribe had met and planned
an assault upon this quiet city that was to result in great loss of
property and life, and of that which to them was far more precious than
either.
"There was not the shadow of an excuse for the invasion. The hill
people--a fierce, brave tribe, trained under a military government, and
accustomed to fighting from their youth--had no quarrel with the
citizens of the plain, who had no mind to fight with their neighbors or
to interfere with any one's rights. But the hill people were
slave-holders, and, whenever their establishments wanted replenishing,
they sent out an army to attack some neighboring city; and if they
gained the victory (as they were pretty sure to do, for they were a
fierce, brave race), they would rush into every house in the city and
carry off all the babies they could find, to be brought up as slaves.
"And this is what they had planned to do to the pretty city lying asleep
in the moonlight on a July evening.
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