Early one morning, as the tardy daylight broke, a rumble of wheels in the street below told of the arrival of travellers.

The wheels stopped before Ashley's door, and he hastily finished his toilet and went down.
In a few moments all the house was in a stir and commotion.

A terrible whisper was running from mouth to mouth.

That cart standing grimly silent in the street below carried, it was said, a terrible load.

Beneath its heavy cover lay the bodies of about twenty victims of Indian ferocity; and the guardians of the load were stern-faced men, bearing recent scars upon their own persons, who ate and drank in stony silence, and only waited till the Assembly had met before completing their grim mission.
The thing had got wind in the town by now, and the square space was thronged.