"That I certainly should," said old Samson, "for I had but a few days before parted from my daughter to proceed eastward.  On hearing of the massacre, I returned; but finding the whole village a mass of blackened ashes, and being unable to gain any tidings of the beings I loved best on earth, I had no doubt left on my mind that they had all perished. Having thus no one to care for, I took to the life I have since led-- which I had before only occasionally followed, after the death of my wife and the marriage of my daughter, for the sake of the sport it afforded me."