"If he was a relation of yours, ma'am, I can tell you that he died like
a man. First I thought that I would spend what little strength I had
left in fighting the mob at the door, and that they should not go in
except over my body; but the gaoler opened the door in pretence of
finding out what was the matter, for he was in the plot; so I thought
that I would run up and give warning. But by the time I got to the door
of the upper room where the prophet was, the mob was up behind me, so I
never rightly knew what I did, for they knocked me down just within the
room. There were four or five men with the prophet and Mr. Hyrum, and
these kept the mob back for a few minutes at the door, but a bullet hit
Mr. Hyrum in the head, and I saw the prophet leaning over him, and he
said in a voice that was very sad, 'My dear, dear brother!'
"Then the prophet stood up quite calmly and pulled out a pistol and shot
at the mob until all its barrels were discharged. His firing made the
men hold back, for a good number of the mob were struck. Then they came
on again until the door was literally full with muskets and rifles, but
I was lying on the floor below the shots, so I saw them pass over my
head. The very walls were riddled with them, and the prophet stood in
the midst of the shots and threw up his hands towards heaven and cried,
'O Lord, my God.' Then, not knowing what he did, he staggered to the
window, dying from his wounds, and he fell outside the window, and I
heard that the mob out there propped up his body and used it for a
target."
Susannah rose up with clenched hands and pitiful face, but she went out
of the room, leaving the two men together. "Were you injured?" asked
Ephraim of the stranger.
"Well, sir, I was bruised by being trampled on, but the gaoler got hold
of me and dragged me into an iron cell and locked me in, and the next
morning he came and let me out."
"That was a year ago," said Ephraim. "Have you been in Nauvoo since
then?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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