n a piercing whisper, that hissed in the ears of
all: "It's no use now, you know; if one's to hang, all will hang; so our
safest way, you persave, is to lave none of them to tell the story. Ye
may go now, if you wish; but it won't save a hair of your heads. You
cowardly set! I knew if I had tould yez the sport, that none of you,
except my own boys, would come, so I jist played a thrick upon you; but
remimber what you are sworn to, and stand to the oath ye tuck."

Unhappily, notwithstanding the wetness of the preceding weather, the
materials of the house were extremely combustible; the whole dwelling
was now one body of glowing flame, yet the shouts and shrieks within
rose awfully above its crackling and the voice of the storm, for the
wind once more blew in gusts, and with great violence. The doors and
windows were all torn open, and such of those within as had escaped the
flames rushed towards them, for the purpose of further escape, and
of claiming mercy at the hands of their destroyers; but whenever they
appeared, the unearthly cry of "no mercy" rang upon their ears for a
moment, and for a moment only, for they were flung back at the points of
the weapons which the demons had brought with them to make the work of
vengeance more certain.

As yet there were many persons in the house, whose cry for life was
strong as despair, and who clung to it with all the awakened powers
of reason and instinct. The ear of man could hear nothing so strongly
calculated to stifle the demon of cruelty and revenge within him, as the
long and wailing shrieks which rose beyond the elements, in tones that
were carried off rapidly upon the blast, until they died away in the
darkness that lay behind the surrounding hills. Had not the house been
in a solitary situation, and the hour the dead of night, any person
sleeping within a moderate distance must have heard them, for such a cry
of sorrow rising into a yell of despair was almost sufficient to have
awakened, the dead. It was lost, however, upon the hearts and ears that
heard it: to them, though in justice be it said, to only comparatively
a few of them, it appeared as delightful as the tones of soft and
entrancing music.

The claims of the surviving sufferers were now modified; they
supplicated merely to suffer death by the weapons of their enemies; they
were willing to bear that, provided they should be allowed to escape
from the flames; but no--the horrors of the conflagration were
cal