It was a tall house, immediately fronting the street, and every window in it was broken.

The door hung forlornly on one hinge, glaring cracks in its surface showing where the axe had splintered it.
Fragments of glass and ware, hung out and shattered in sheer wantonness, strewed the steps: and down one corner of the latter a dark red stream trickled--to curdle by and by in the gutter.

Whence came the stream?
Alas! there was something more to be seen yet, something our eyes instinctively sought last of all.

The body of a man.
It lay on the threshold, the head hanging back, the wide glazed eyes looking up to the summer sky whence the sweltering heat would soon pour down upon it.

We looked shuddering at the face.