lashes sounded on the boards, but the bodies they were designed for lay close without speaking a word. The whipsters observing they did not complain, laid aside their discipline, and began to pelt them with stones, bricks, and rubbish, they had gathered to that effect. This project succeeded better, for a stone hit Don Toribio on the neck, and raised a bunch as thick as his fist. He cried out "Murder!" and the knaves, that he might not be heard, fell a-singing all together, and rattled their chains. Don Toribio struggled with his companions to get undermost, and in the scuffle, their bones rattled like castanets, their coats fell all in tatters, and not a rag was left upon them. The stones flew about so thick, that in a short space poor Don Toribio had as many knobs on his head as there are on a pine-apple. Finding there was no manner of protection against that dreadful shower of hail that fell upon us, but there he was like to die a martyr, without being guilty of the least piety or religion, he cried out, begging they would let him get out of that place, and he would pay immediately, delivering up his clothes in pledge. The persecutors consented, and though his companions would have held him, because he sheltered them, he got up the best he could, all battered, and came over to my side. The rest were not so quick at promising the same, but that they had as many knocks as hairs on their heads, yet offered up their clothes towards paying the garnish; thinking it was better to lie abed for want of clothes than for broken bones. Accordingly they were let go for that night, but in the morning they had orders to strip; they did so, and it appeared that all their clothes put together would not bring one halfpenny loaf. They lay abed, that is, wrapped up in a blanket belonging to the public. [Illustration]