Two soldiers contended for a girl, whose rich dress and extreme beauty excited the brutal appetites of these wretches, who, perhaps good men among their families, were changed by the fury of the moment into incarnated evils. An old man, with a silver beard, decrepit and bald, he might be her grandfather, interposed to save her; the battle axe of one of them clove his skull. I rushed to her defence, but rage made them blind and deaf; they did not distinguish my Christian garb or heed my words⁠—words were blunt weapons then, for while war cried ‘havoc,’ and murder gave fit echo, how could I⁠—

Turn back the tide of ills, relieving wrong

With mild accost of soothing eloquence?

Turn back the tide of ills, relieving wrong With mild accost of soothing eloquence?