Just inside I came upon fifteen English people
of the dressed class, except two, who were evidently bricklayers: six
ladies, and nine men: and at the further end, two more, men, who had
their throats cut; along one wall, from end to end were provisions; and
I saw a chest full of mixed potassic chlorate and black oxide of
manganese, with an apparatus for heating it, and producing oxygen--a
foolish thing, for additional oxygen could not alter the quantity of
breathed carbonic anhydride, which is a direct narcotic poison. Whether
the two with cut throats had sacrificed themselves for the others when
breathing difficulties commenced, or been killed by the others, was not
clear. When they could bear it no longer, they must have finally opened
the door, hoping that by then, after the passage of many days perhaps,
the outer air would be harmless, and so met their death. I believe that
this erection must have been run up by their own hands under the
direction of the two bricklayers, for they could not, I suppose, have
got workmen, except on the condition of the workmen's admission: on
which condition they would naturally employ as few as possible.
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