While some brought all their energies to bear upon this toilsome task;
and some, rearing ladders against the prison, tried to clamber to the
summit of the walls they were too short to scale; and some again engaged
a body of police a hundred strong, and beat them back and trod them
under foot by force of numbers; others besieged the house on which the
jailer had appeared, and driving in the door, brought out his furniture,
and piled it up against the prison-gate, to make a bonfire which should
burn it down. As soon as this device was understood, all those who had
laboured hitherto, cast down their tools and helped to swell the heap;
which reached half-way across the street, and was so high, that those
who threw more fuel on the top, got up by ladders. When all the keeper's
goods were flung upon this costly pile, to the last fragment, they
smeared it with the pitch, and tar, and rosin they had brought, and
sprinkled it with turpentine. To all the woodwork round the prison-doors
they did the like, leaving not a joist or beam untouched. This infernal
christening performed, they fired the pile with lighted matches and with
blazing tow, and then stood by, awaiting the result.
Pages:
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850