he attempt, in his despair, to throw himself from the wall.
The Captain got up, and placing the point of his bayonet against his
shoulder, flung him into the fiery element that raged behind him. He
uttered one wild and terrific cry, as he fell back, and no more. After
this nothing was heard but the crackling of the fire, and the rushing of
the blast; all that had possessed life within were consumed, amounting
either to eight or eleven persons.

When this was accomplished, those who took an active part in the murder,
stood for some time about the conflagration; and as it threw its red
light upon their fierce faces and rough persons, soiled as they now were
with smoke and black streaks of ashes, the scene seemed to be changed to
hell, the murderers to spirits of the damned, rejoicing over the arrival
and the torture of some guilty soul. The faces of those who kept aloof
from the slaughter were blanched to the whiteness of death: some of them
fainted, and others were in such agitation that they were compelled to
lean on their comrades. They became actually powerless with horror:
yet to such a scene were they brought by the pernicious influence of
Ribbonism.

It was only when the last victim went down, that the conflagration shot
up into the air with most unbounded fury. The house was large, deeply
thatched, and well furnished; and the broad red pyramid rose up with
fearful magnificence towards the sky. Abstractedly it had sublimity, but
now it was associated with nothing in my mind but blood and terror. It
was not, however, without a purpose that the Captain and his gang stood
to contemplate its effect. "Boys," said he, "we had betther be sartin
that all's safe; who knows but there might be some of the sarpents
crouchin' under a hape o' rubbish, to come out an' gibbet us to-morrow
or next day: we had betther wait a while, anyhow, if it was only to see
the blaze."

Just then the flames rose majestically to a surprising height. Our eyes
followed their direction; and we perceived, for the first time, that
the dark clouds above, together with the intermediate air, appeared
to reflect back, or rather to have caught the red hue of the fire. The
hills and country about us appeared with an alarming distinctness; but
the most picturesque part of it was the effect of reflection of the
blaze on the floods that spread over the surrounding plains. These, in
fact, appeared to be one broad mass of liquid copper, for the motion of
the