My importunities would not now be eluded. My suspicions were roused, and no evasion or artifice was sufficient to allay them. Many of the audience began to give vent to their emotions in tears. Mr. Hallet himself seemed as if the conflict were too hard to be longer sustained. Something whispered to my heart that havoc had been wider than I now witnessed. I suspected this concealment to arise from apprehensions of the effects which a knowledge of the truth would produce in me. I once more entreated him to inform me truly of their state. To enforce my entreaties, I put on an air of insensibility. “I can guess,” said I, “what has happened—They are indeed beyond the reach of injury, for they are dead! Is it not so?” My voice faltered in spite of my courageous efforts.
“Yes,” said he, “they are dead! Dead by the same fate, and by the same hand, with their mother!”
“Dead!” replied I; “what, all?”
“All!” replied he: “he spared not one !”
Allow me, my friends, to close my eyes upon the after-scene. Why should I protract a tale which