.
Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work.

Had I not been nerved by thoughts of other dead, and of the living over whom hung such a pall of fear, I could not have gone on.

I tremble and tremble even yet, though till all was over, God be thanked, my nerve did stand.

Had I not seen the repose in the first place, and the gladness that stole over it just ere the final dissolution came, as realization that the soul had been won, I could not have gone further with my butchery.

I could not have endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home, the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foam.