hidden treasure, or the whereabouts of her husband, who, for aught she knew, was lying dead in the streets, were of no avail.  To make her more communicative, they hanged her on a beam in the cellar, and after a few moments cut her down before life was extinct.  Still receiving no satisfactory reply, where a satisfactory reply was impossible, they hanged her again.  Again, after another brief interval they gave her a second release, and a fresh interrogatory.  This barbarity they repeated several times, till they were satisfied that there was nothing to be gained by it, while, on, the other hand, they were losing much valuable time.  Hoping to be more successful elsewhere, they left her hanging for the last time, and trooped off to fresher fields.  Strange to relate, the person thus horribly tortured, survived.  A servant in her family, married to a Spanish soldier, providentially entered the house in time to rescue her perishing mistress.  She was restored to existence, but never to reason.  Her brain was hopelessly crazed, and she passed the remainder of her life wandering about her house, or feebly digging in her garden for the buried treasure which she had been thus fiercely solicited to reveal.

A wedding-feast was rudely interrupted.  Two young persons, neighbours of opulent families, had been long betrothed, and the marriage day had been fixed for Sunday, the fatal 4th of November.  The guests were assembled, the ceremony concluded, the nuptial banquet in progress, when the horrible outcries in the streets proclaimed that the Spaniards had broken loose.  Hour after hour of trembling expectation succeeded.  At last, a thundering at the gate proclaimed the arrival of a band of brigands.  Preceded by their captain, a large number of soldiers forced their way into the house, ransacking every chamber, no opposition being offered by the family and friends, too few and powerless to cope with this band of well-armed ruffians.  Plate chests, wardrobes, desks, caskets of jewelry, were freely offered, eagerly accepted, but not found sufficient, and to make the luckless wretches furnish more than they possessed, the usual brutalities were employed.  The soldiers began by striking the bridegroom dead.  The bride fell shrieking into her mother’s arms, whence she was torn by the murderers, who immediately put the mother to death, and an indiscriminate massacre then followed the fruitless attempt to obtain by threats and torture treasure which did not exist.  The bride, who was of remarkable beauty, was carried off to the citadel.  Maddened by this last outrage, the father, who was the only man of the party left alive, rushed upon the Spaniards.  Wresting a sword from one of the crew, the old man dealt with it so fiercely, that he stretched more than one enemy dead at his feet, but it is needless to add that he was soon despatched.  Meantime, while the party were concluding the plunder of the mansion, the bride was left in a lonely apartment of the fortress.