Hail the returning sun.”
PERCIVAL.
Tuesday, Dec. 1. I was startled from my slumbers last night by the report of a musket under my window; and, seizing my rifle, rushed to the door but could perceive no one near, and only heard, in the darkness, the sound of retreating footsteps. The mystery was soon explained: the convicts had escaped from prison, and the sentry, posted near my residence, had fired upon them as they rushed past. Several of the guard went immediately in pursuit, and succeeded in apprehending two; but seven others, favored by the darkness and storm of the night, had cleared the town.
It appeared, on investigation, that the sentry, posted at the prison, had stolen the keys from the guardroom, where they were kept, unlocked the outer and inner doors, and then run himself with the convicts. Another sentry, by a preconcerted plan, had also joined them. Only one prisoner remained in the apartment which had been unlocked. When asked by me why he did not run, he said he would not be seen running from Tophet in such company. This was the funny fellow who stole the money. One of those who escaped, was a great overgrown Californian—a monstrous mass of flesh and bone. He had been shot in the leg in a previous fray, and always affected the cripple, hobbling about on huge crutches, which fairly bent under him. But last night, when his pursuers were close on his trail, he bounded forward like a rabbit. Crutches, and all occasion for them, had been left behind. You would have thought some shape of air were flitting before you, but for the heavy puffs which heaved, at brief intervals, from his laboring trunk. An innocent man escaping from violence has often a hard time of it, but a felon escaping from justice much harder; his guilty conscience will long keep the pursuer at his heels.
Wednesday, Dec. 2. A party, well mounted and armed, started this morning in pursuit of the convicts. They overtook one of them and the two sentries about twenty miles distant. The sentries still had their arms, which they surrendered, and delivered themselves up without resistance. The convict was shot down through the impetuosity of one of the party. There is a degree of ferocity in shooting down an unarmed man at which humanity revolts. We can hardly find an apology for it, even in the brutal instincts of the savage. The fate of the two sentries concerned in liberating the prisoners whom they were posted to guard, is uncertain. If tried by a court-martial, their sentence will be death; if delivered over to the civil authority, they will be sentenced to the public works for a long term of years.
Thursday, Dec. 3. The convict Edwards, found with the two sentries, and who had been shot after he had surrendered, was left in a dying condition on the public road. My constable left this morning to find him, but was unable to cross the Salinas river on account of the freshet, and its extreme rapidity. His horse got frightened and refused to swim him over. He fastened him on this side, and, divesting himself of his hat, shoes, and coat, plunged in; but the current after sweeping him down a mile or more, landed him on the same side from which he had started.
He is a man of great humanity as well as courage and resolution, and it was not with his consent that Edwards was left at night-fall, wounded and dying, exposed to a pitiless storm, and to be devoured by wild beasts. It was inhuman to leave him in this condition, when he might have been brought in, or taken to some house in the neighborhood. Those in fault, now that the wrong has been done, and is irretrievable, would gladly veil it from the public eye. There is a tongue in cruelty, which those who inflict it can never silence. It will speak out and awaken pangs in the most callous conscience. If we have no mercy on others, how can we expect it for ourselves in that day when we most need it?
“Teach me to feel another’s woe,
To hide the faults I see;
The mercy I to others show,