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 breaking-waters caught from the blaze of the high waving column, as reflected in them, a glaring light, which eddied, and rose, and fluctuated, as if the flood itself had been a lake of molten fire.

Fire, however, destroys rapidly.  In a short time the flames sank—­became weak and flickering—­by and by, they shot out only in fits—­the crackling of the timbers died away—­the surrounding darkness deepened—­and, ere long, the faint light was overpowered by the thick volumes of smoke that rose from the ruins of the house and its murdered inhabitants.

“Now, boys,” said the Captain, “all is safe—­we may go.  Remember, every man of you, what you’ve sworn this night, on the book an’ altar of God—­not on a heretic Bible.  If you perjure yourselves, you may hang us; but let me tell you, for your comfort, that if you do, there is them livin’ that will take care the lease of your own lives will be but short.”

After this we dispersed every man to his own home.