Definition of "pitilessly"

The simple questions of the tattered man had been knife thrusts to him. They asserted a society that probes pitilessly at secrets until all is apparent.

1895 October, Stephen Crane, chapter X, in The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, page 106

They treated the prisoners roughly [...] slashing pitilessly with their whips to drive them as wretched animals before them.

1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 60