Bright spirits beckon and call us. I am ready."
There was a gleam of madness in his eyes, and, as he took a pistol from
a bureau-drawer, an answering gleam flashed forth from the eyes of the
wife, as she said:
"Yes, love, we will all go together. I too am ready."
The sleeping children were breathing sweetly, unmindful of the horror
that the devil was hatching.
"The children first, then you, and then me," he said, his eye kindling
with increasing excitement.
He penciled a short note addressed to one of his old friends, asking him
to attend to the burial of the bodies, then they kissed each of the
sleeping children, and then--but let the curtain fall on the scene that
followed. The seven were found next day lying dead, a bullet through the
brain of each, the murderer, by the side of the wife, still holding the
weapon of death in his hand, its muzzle against his right temple.
Other pictures of real life and death crowd upon, my mind, among them
noble forms and faces that were near and dear to me; but again I hear
the appealing voices. The page before me is wet with tears--I cannot
see to write.
Father Fisher.
He came to California in 1855. The Pacific Conference was in session at
Sacramento.
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