Not wishing to meet these men again, he abandoned his own bedroom,
taking refuge on the top floor in the servants' quarters, near the
room selected by the Warden and his family. In vain the good woman kept
offering him things to eat as the night came on--he had no appetite. He
lay stretched out on the bed, preferring to be alone with his thoughts
in the dark. When would this martyrdom ever come to an end? . . .
There came into his mind the recollection of a trip which he had made
to London some years ago. In his imagination he again saw the British
Museum and certain Assyrian bas-reliefs--relics of bestial humanity,
which had filled him with terror. The warriors were represented as
burning the towns; the prisoners were beheaded in heaps; the pacific
countrymen were marching in lines with chains on their necks, forming
strings of slaves. Until that moment he had never realized the advance
which civilization had made through the centuries. Wars were still
breaking out now and then, but they had been regulated by the march of
progress. The life of the prisoner was now held sacred; the captured
towns must be respected; there existed a complete code of international
law to regulate how men should be killed and nations should combat,
causing the least possible harm. . . . But now he had just seen the
primitive realities of war.
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