At
that moment, one Verhagen struck him with his musket. Hundreds followed
his example, and the cruel massacre was completed.
"Barbarities too dreadful for utterance or contemplation, all that
phrenzied passion or brutal ferocity could suggest, were perpetrated
on the bodies of these noble and virtuous citizens; nor was it till
night put an end to the butchery, that their friends were permitted
to convey their mangled remains to a secret and obscure tomb."
In the Nieuwe Kerk at The Hague the tomb of the De Witts may be seen
and honoured.
The Gevangenpoort is well worth a visit. One passes tortuously from
cell to cell--most of them associated with some famous breaker of
the laws of God or man, principally of man. Here you may see a stone
hollowed by the drops of water that plashed from the prisoner's head,
on which they were timed to fall at intervals of a few seconds--a
form of torture imported, I believe, from China, and after some hours
ending inevitably in madness and death. Beside such a refinement
the rack is a mere trifle and the Gevangenpoort's branding irons and
thumb screws become only toys. A block, retaining the cuts made by the
axe after it had crashed through the offending neck, is also shown;
and the names of prisoners written in their blood on the walls may
be traced.
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