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 he attempt, in his despair, to throw himself from the wall.
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