Thus fearful alike, of those within the prison and
of those without; of noise and silence; light and darkness; of being
released, and being left there to die; he was so tortured and tormented,
that nothing man has ever done to man in the horrible caprice of power
and cruelty, exceeds his self-inflicted punishment.
Now, now, the door was down. Now they came rushing through the jail,
calling to each other in the vaulted passages; clashing the iron gates
dividing yard from yard; beating at the doors of cells and wards;
wrenching off bolts and locks and bars; tearing down the door-posts to
get men out; endeavouring to drag them by main force through gaps and
windows where a child could scarcely pass; whooping and yelling without
a moment's rest; and running through the heat and flames as if they were
cased in metal. By their legs, their arms, the hair upon their heads,
they dragged the prisoners out. Some threw themselves upon the captives
as they got towards the door, and tried to file away their irons; some
danced about them with a frenzied joy, and rent their clothes, and were
ready, as it seemed, to tear them limb from limb. Now a party of a dozen
men came darting through the yard into which the murderer cast fearful
glances from his darkened window; dragging a prisoner along the ground
whose dress they had nearly torn from his body in their mad eagerness to
set him free, and who was bleeding and senseless in their hands.
Pages:
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860