mly and malignantly gloried in by their merciless assassins, who
deliberately flung them back into all their tortures. In the course of
a few minutes a man appeared upon the side-wall of the house, nearly
naked; his figure, as he stood against the sky in horrible relief, was
so finished a picture of woebegone agony and supplication, that it is
yet as distinct in my memory as if I were again present at the scene.
Every muscle, now in motion by the powerful agitation of his sufferings,
stood out upon his limbs and neck, giving him an appearance of desperate
strength, to which by this time he must have been wrought up; the
perspiration poured from his frame, and the veins and arteries of his
neck were inflated to a surprising thickness. Every moment he looked
down into the flames which were rising to where he stood; and as he
looked, the indescribable horror which flitted over his features might
have worked upon the devil himself to relent. His words were few:--

"My child," said he, "is still safe, she is an infant, a young crathur
that never harmed you, or any one--she is still safe. Your mothers, your
wives, have young innocent childhre like it. Oh, spare her, think for a
moment that it's one of your own; spare it, as you hope to meet a just
God, or if you don't, in mercy shoot me first--put an end to me, before
I see her burned!"

The Captain approached him coolly and deliberately. "You'll prosecute no
one now, you bloody informer," said he: "you'll convict no more boys for
takin' an ould gun an' pistol from you, or for givin' you a neighborly
knock or two into the bargain."

Just then, from a window opposite him, proceeded the shrieks of a woman,
who appeared at it with the infant, in her arms. She herself was almost
scorched to death; but, with the presence of mind and humanity of her
sex, she was about to put the little babe out of the window. The Captain
noticed this, and, with characteristic atrocity, thrust, with a sharp
bayonet, the little innocent, along with the person who endeavored to
rescue it, into the red flames, where they both perished. This was the
work of an instant. Again he approached the man: "Your child is a coal
now," said he, with deliberate mockery; "I pitched it in myself, on the
point of this,"--showing the weapon--"an' now is your turn,"--saying
which, he clambered up, by the assistance of his gang, who stood with
a front of pikes and bayonets bristling to receive the wretched man,
should