Order is shattered in a strange guttural tone that resounded

along the walls of the houses, which seemed dead and deserted,

while, behind the closed shutters, eyes watched the conquerors,

who, by right of war, were now masters of the city and of the lives

and fortunes of its people.



In their darkened ruins the inhabitants have given way to the same

feeling of panic which is aroused by natural cataclysms those

devastating upheavals of the Earth, against which wisdom and

strength alike are of no avail.



Though the same feeling is experienced wherever the established

order of things is upset, when security ceases to exist, when all that

was previously protected by the laws of man and nature is suddenly

placed at the mercy of brutal unreasoning force.



The earthquake, burying a whole people beneath the ruins of their

houses, the river in spate, sweeping away the bodies of drowned

peasants, together with the carcasses of cattle and rafters torn from

roofs, and the victorious army slaughtering all who resist, making

prisoners of the rest, looting by right of the sword, and thanking their

god to the sound of cannon.



All these are terrifying scourges which undermine all our belief in

eternal justice and all the trust we have been taught to place in divine

protection and human reason.