medlately under the bed of their murdered victim, making sure of that, and the whole house, with its inmates included, being totally destroyed before daylight, and were then retreating, when Rachel, with most internal fiend-engendered savageness of heart, us it were "to make assurance doubly sure," by herself returned to Mr. Van Swearingen's bed, and cut her throat. literally, from ear to ear! Their bloody work thus finished, they escaped together from the house undiscovered, and unobserved to Rachel's residence, where they (without a light, as caution dictated,) immediately went to bed, but whether, under such a weight of frightful enormity, they could sleep, remain in negative conjecture.
The next morning they (Van Swearingen and his accomplice, Rachel,) were astonished that all abroad was silent; no consternation at, or alarm of fire, as they expected, was heard The combustible matter they had kindled, had from some cause not ascertained, gone out, as supposed, soon after they had left it. About the middle of the day, the Sheriff's servants became alarmed that their mistress, who was accustomed to rather early rising, had not that morning appeared: their alarm increased, when on one knocking at her chamber no answer was given; they (the servants.) assembled and opening the door, entered together, when a most appalling spectacle presented itself to them, in their murdered lady, in the horrible state already described, and the room flowing with blood; the only circumstance, perhaps, that might account for the fire being extinguished.
Alarm instantaneously spread; various reports, on surmise circulated; the house had certainly not been broken into. Van Swearingen affected the deepest and feigned even frenzy at the fate of his wife in the course of the afternoon, however, suspicion whispered too loudly, not to be heard and distinctly understood by him and his she-demon accomplice. Guilt was the positive accuser, and self-preservation became now their only leading counsel: they had no time to lose, and in the middle of that night, covered, by darkness, through the black, deep-sable shade of nocturnal gloom, black as their monstrous crimes, they passed unseen, and effected their flight from Hagerstown and Alleghany County
