The furniture in the room had been splintered and wrecked with bullets and the contortions of the Negroes.
On the floor, near the center of the room, were two Negroes, still tied with the rope, locked in each other’s embrace. Near their bodies streams of blood were dyeing red the floor and spreading out in pools.
Just beyond were two more bodies. These Negroes were dead, too.
Near the fireplace was John Bigby, twisting and writhing in his agony. Blood was spouting from a number of wounds.
Under the beds and tables and piles of furniture were other bodies, every prisoner apparently dead, except Bigby, who was fast regaining consciousness.
The guards opened the door cautiously, but there was no sign of the mob, save the echoing footfalls on the country road.
CHAPTER II.
TORTURED AND BURNED ALIVE.
The burning of Samuel Hose, or, to give his right name, Samuel Wilkes, gave to the United States the distinction of having burned alive seven human beings during the past ten years. The details of this deed of unspeakable barbarism have shocked the civilized world, for it is conceded universally that no other nation on earth, civilized or savage, has put to death any human being with such atrocious cruelty as that inflicted upon Samuel Hose by the Christian white people of Georgia.
The charge is generally made that lynch law is condemned by the best white people of the South, and that lynching is the work of the lowest and lawless class. Those who seek the truth know the fact to be, that all classes are equally guilty, for what the one class does the other encourages, excuses and condones.