We provided ourselves with fireworks [he
means flints to strike fire] for our journey, which we pursued
unmolested till the fourth day just at night, when we heard a rustle
in the bushes and discovered nine sepoys, who rushed out upon us.
"Folgier being the most resolute of us run at one of them, and pushed
his bayonet through his body into a tree. Randall knocked down
another; but they overpowered us, bound us, and carried us back to the
fort, which we reached in a day and a half, though we had been four
days travelling from it, owing to the circle we made by going round
the shore, and they came across the woods being acquainted with the
way.
"Immediately on our arrival at the fort the Governor called a court
martial, to have us tried. We were soon all condemned to be shot next
morning at seven o'clock, and ordered to be sent into the dungeon and
confined in irons, where we were attended by an adjutant who brought a
priest with him to pray and converse with us, but Folgier, who hated
the sight of an Englishman, desired that we might be left alone. * * *
the clergyman reprimanded him, and told him he made very light of his
situation on the supposition that he would be reprieved; but if he
expected it he deceived himself. Folgier still persisted in the
clergyman's leaving us, if he would have us make our peace with God,
'for,' said he, 'the sight of Englishmen, from whom we have received
such treatment, is more disagreeable than the evil spirits of which
you have spoken;' that, if he could have his choice, he would choose
death in preference to life, if he must have it on the condition of
such barbarous usage as he had received from their hands; and the
thoughts of death did not seem so hideous to him as his past
sufferings.
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