Page 5 (1/1)

Within the narrow space of two days the iron hand of Spain's new Captain-General had closed upon the leaders of the bloodless insurrection, his judg with such severity as to earn for him in the annals of Louisiana the title of "Cruel O'Reilly" A those of the revolutionists before mentioned, Petit, Masan, Doucet, Boisblanc, Jean Milhet, and Poupet were consigned to Moro Castle, Havana, where they remained a year, and then were stripped of their property and forbidden ever again to enter the province of Louisiana The younger Bienville escaped with the loss of his fortune Foucault uard on board the "Santa Maria," where he was held prisoner; while Lafrénière, De Noyan, Caresse, Marquis, and Joseph Milhet were condeed The earnest supplication, both of colonists and Spanish officials, shocked by the unjust severity of this sentence, sufficed to save theallows, but fated therenadiers

With the firing of the sunset gun the evening of their last earthly day, the post-captain visited the condemned men, and spoke with each in turn; they nuht heavily areway before nail-studded doors, while each hour, as the ship's bell struck, the Cohted apartment where rested five plainly outlined forray of the dawn the unfortunate prisoners were mustered upon deck, but they numbered only four And four only, white faced, yet firm of step and clear of eye, stood an hour later with backs to the rising sun and hearts to the levelled rifles, and when the single volley had echoed and reechoed across the wide river, the white s and bloay above the trees, only four lifeless bodies lay closely pressed against the red-brick wall--the fifth condemned man was not there: Chevalier Charles de Noyan had escaped his fate Like a spirit had he vanished during thoseno trace of his going save a newly severed rope which hung dangling fro--as we learn from private letters sent home by officers of the Spanish fleet--there came to the puzzled O'Reilly a report that in the dense blackness of that starless night a single boat sought to slip silently past beneath the deep shadows of the upper battery Unhalting in response to a hail of the sentry, a volley was hastily fired toward its uncertain outline, and, in the flare of the guns, the officer of the guard noted the black figure of a h into air, and disappear beneath the dark surface of the river So it was the Captain-General wrote also the na it with the same terse military record, "Shot at sunrise"