The convent, when Herrera and Torres re-entered it, showed abundant traces of the rough visitors by whom it had recently been occupied. Doors broken down, windows smashed, the corridors and cloisters encumbered with broken furniture, and lighted here and there by the thick wax tapers used at the altar, some of which had fallen from the places where the guerillas had stuck them, and lay flaming on the ground, threatening the building with conflagration. Some of the nuns had shut themselves in their cells, others sat weeping and moping in the refectory; on all sides were desolation and the sound of lamentation. Here and there lay the bloody and disfigured bodies of the slain Carlists. Not one of them had been spared. The chapel had been ransacked, and although the Mochuelo had forbidden his men to encumber themselves with plunder, all the smaller and more valuable decorations of the sacred edifice had been transferred to the haversacks of the guerillas. He had been more successful in preserving the nuns from ill usage, although, in moments of license and excitement, even his commands did not always find obedience. But a few minutes, however, had been granted to the reckless invaders to complete their work of spoliation, before he cleared the convent, and, forming up his men outside the gate, forbade their leaving their ranks. On Herrera's entrance, the terrified nuns thought that the guerillas were returning, and with cries of terror fled in all directions. He succeeded in calming their fears, and enquired for the abbess, although nearly certain that she it was to whose death he had been witness. None could tell him aught concerning her; nor was he able, either by threats or entreaties, to obtain any information with respect to Rita. Several of the nuns knew that she and her attendant had occupied apartments contiguous to those of the abbess; but they had none of them been admitted to see her, and knew nothing of her fate. A rapid search instituted by Herrera and Torres was entirely fruitless. Already two messengers had been sent by the Mochuelo to hasten their movements, and at last Torres succeeded in dragging his friend away. The guerillas had already marched with the exception of a small party who still waited at the foot of the slope, and now hurried after the main body.