At length he was taken by surprise when at his devotions. He was on his knees before the high altar saying his prayers at midnight, when two men crept up behind him unobserved and attacked him. One struck him with a dagger in the left arm, the other felled him with a violent blow on the back of the neck by which he was laid prostrate and carried off dying. With his last breath he thanked God for being selected to seal so good a cause with his blood. His death was deemed a martyrdom and caused a reaction in favour of the Inquisition as a general rising of the New Christians was feared. The storm was appeased by the archbishop of Saragossa who gave out publicly that the murderers should be rigorously pursued and should suffer condign punishment. The promise was abundantly fulfilled. A stern recompense was exacted from all who were identified with the conspiracy. The scent was followed up with unrelenting pertinacity, several persons were taken and put to death, and a larger number perished in the dungeons of the Inquisition. All the perpetrators of the murder were hanged after their right hands had been amputated. The sentence of one who had given evidence against the rest was commuted in that his hand was not cut off till after his death. A native of Saragossa had taken refuge in Tudela where he found shelter and concealment in the house of the Infante, Don Jaime, the illegitimate son of the Queen of Navarre, and nephew of King Ferdinand himself. The generous young prince could not reject the claims of hospitality and helped the fugitive to escape into France. But the Infante was himself arrested by the inquisitors and imprisoned as an "impeder" of the Holy Office. His trial took place in Saragossa, although Navarre was outside its jurisdiction, and he was sentenced to do open penance in the cathedral in the presence of a great congregation at High Mass. The ceremony was carried out before the Archbishop of Saragossa, a boy of seventeen, the illegitimate son of King Ferdinand, and this callow stripling in his primate's robes ordered his father's nephew to be flogged round the church with rods. The second story is much more horrible. One Gaspar de Santa Cruz of Saragossa had been concerned in the rebellion, but escaped to Toulouse where he died. He had been aided in his flight by a son who remained in Saragossa, and who was arrested as an "impeder" of the Holy Office. He was tried and condemned to appear at an _auto da fé_, where he was made to read an act which held up his father to public ignominy. Then the son was transferred to the custody of the inquisitor of Toulouse who took him to his father's grave, forced him to exhume the corpse and burn it with his own hands.