Olympia has recorded some of the incidents of that dreadful day in the letter to her sister, that has been already quoted. The soldiers, rushing into the town in complete disorder, set fire to the houses in many places. "In that moment of trepidation and panic terror," she writes, "my husband and I were rushing to the church as the safest asylum, when a soldier, altogether unknown to us, addressed us, and warned us to fly from the city if we would not be buried beneath its ruins. Had we remained in the church, we should have been suffocated by the smoke, as many were. We followed the man's advice, and made for the gate accordingly." But before they could reach it, the letter goes on to say, they fell into the hands of a party of soldiers, who stripped them of every thing, and took Grünthler prisoner. Escaping from their hands, he was a second time seized before they could reach the gate.[119] "Then, I can tell you, I knew what agony of mind is, if ever I knew it; then I prayed with ardour, if ever I did so. In my sore distress I cried aloud, 'Help me! Help me, Oh Lord, for Christ his sake!' nor did I cease my cry until He helped me, and set my husband free. I would that you could have seen in what a condition I was, covered with fluttering rags, for my clothes had been torn from off my back. In my flight I lost both shoes and stockings, and had to run barefoot over rough stones and rocks, so that in truth I know not how I won through. Again and again I said, 'Here I must fall and die, for I can endure no more.' Then I cried to God, 'Lord, if thou wilt, that I live, command thy angels that they carry me, for carry myself I cannot!'" At length they reached the gate, and escaped from the horrors of the town. "And having my husband with me," says the letter to her sister, "I minded not the loss of all else, though I had only my shift—subucula—left to cover me."