Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/771

Rh 'Oh, Captain! forbear—don't kill us all.' To this supplication the cruel inexorable Shortland replied, ' Return, you d——d rascal, I'll hear to nothing.' The soldiers then pricked him with their bayonets, which compelled him to retreat to the prison door, where the soldiers who had now entered the prison yard were pursuing and firing.

"The soldiers advanced making a general massacre of men and boys, whom accident or inability had left without the doors of the prison; they advanced near to the crowded door, and instantly discharged another volley of musketry on the backs of those furthest out. This barbarous act was repeated in the presence of this inhuman monster, Shortland—and the prisoners fell, either dead or severely wounded, in all directions before his sight.

"But his vengeance was not glutted by the murder of innocent men and boys that lay weltering and bleeding in the agonies of death about the prison door, but turned and traversed the yard, and hunted a poor affrighted wretch that had fled for safety close under the walls of Prison No. 1. This unhappy man was discovered by these hell-hounds, with that demon at their head, and with cool and deliberate malice drew up their muskets to their shoulders and dispatched their victim in the act of imploring mercy from their hands. His only crime was not being able to get into the prison before without being shot.

"In the yard of No. 7 they found another hopeless victim crouching along the wall at the far end of the yard. Whereupon five of them drew up their instruments of death, and by the order of this fell murderer discharged their contents into the body of the innocent man."

After this the soldiery were withdrawn.