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The pious bard who sings the praises of Napoleon's executioners Wellington and his coadjutors and whose "History" was unworthy of the reputations of himself and his publishers, will have sunk into oblivion when the fiery soul of the "Sultan Kebir" will seize on the imagination of generations yet unborn, and intoxicate them with the memory of the deeds that he had done.

At that moment the pigeons which had till then never ceased to circle round the stake, flew away, and were lost in the clouds. Urbain Grandier had given up the ghost. This time it was not the man who was executed who was guilty, but the executioners; consequently we feel sure that our readers will be anxious to learn something of their fate.

Dick clambered to his feet, and, staggering and leaning on the tree-trunks as he went, drew near to this grim object. The bough was perhaps twenty feet above the ground, and the poor fellow had been drawn up so high by his executioners that his boots swung clear above Dick's reach; and as his hood had been drawn over his face, it was impossible to recognise the man.

But the government had already determined, that the trade should not be continued for such a purpose. We were no longer to continue pirates, or executioners for every petty tyrant in Africa, in order that every holder of a bit of land in our islands might cultivate the whole of his allotment; a work, which might require centuries.

The fury of the governor and the executioners was redoubled against him; and, not knowing how to torment him further, they applied to his most tender members bars of red-hot iron. His members burned; but he, upright and immovable, persisted in his profession of faith, as if living waters from the bosom of Christ flowed over him and refreshed him.

"I am not one of those who believe in the coming of Beauty, Goodness, and Justice.... Nor am I one of those who regild the idols of the past, symbols of obscure forces which it behoves us to worship in silence. I am neither submissive nor a believer. I love Pity, for we are unfortunates, and it does us good to be solaced, even if we be executioners and butchers.

Schoolmasters, he says, in those days were tyrants and executioners, the schools were prisons and hells, and in spite of blows, trembling, fear, and misery, nothing was ever taught. He had been whipped, he tells us, fifteen times one morning, without any fault of his own, having been called on to repeat what he had never been taught.

Women and children could be seen led down the streets by their executioners, their flesh in ribbons, with candles burning in their wounds, singing with ringing voices before the silent spectators: “Verily from God we come, and unto Him we return!” As some of the children expired on the way their tormentors would fling their bodies under the feet of their fathers and sisters who, proudly treading upon them, would not deign to give them a second glance.

The sentence was that Smith's brains were to be knocked out with a bludgeon; and he was led into the presence of the chief and the warriors, and ordered to lay his head upon the stone. He did so, and the executioners poised their clubs for the fatal blow; but it never fell.

The Queen of Cities wrapped around her the faded folds of her imperial purple, rent by faction, pierced with barbaric daggers, and trampled in the dust. Yet not with the dignity of her great Julius did she die. She begged for mercy, not proud and stately amid her executioners, but like a withered hag, with the wine-cup of sorceries in her hand, pale, haggard, ghastly, staggering, helpless.