"But that night, hombre, we had a terrible retribution," said the second muleteer, through his clenched teeth, as he gave a fierce twist to the scarlet silk handkerchief which encircled his head, and the fringed ends of which came from under his sombrero and floated over his shoulders. "Retribution, Ignacio Noain, I think we had, amigo mio!" replied Ramon, with a bitter laugh; "for it was on that night Baltasar threw off his student's gown and betook him to knife and musket, and rushed through the streets, shouting 'Guerra al cuchillo, Salamanquinos!' and 'Viva el Rey de Espana!' before the head-quarters of Marshal Murat; and sure vengeance he took, for ere morning the gutters of the Prado were gorged with the blood of more than seven hundred Frenchmen, who fell by the muskets and daggers of the loyal Castilians." "Then," said the third muleteer, with a smiling face and in an encomiastic tone, "it was Baltasar who slew Don Miguel de Saavedra." "To the devil with him!" "The traitorous governor of Valencia," added the other two. "And it was he," said Ramon, "who with his namesake, the Padre Baltasar Calvo, for twelve days and nights followed the fugitive French and Valencian traitors, the tools and followers of Godoy, through the streets, knife in hand, slaying them in cellars, vaults, and bodegas, till the last who was false to Spain had breathed out his dog's life, and his heart, reeking on a bayonet, was thrown on the altar of St. Isidor." The fiery energy of the speakers, the expression of their dark flashing eyes, their picturesque costumes, and the modulation of the grand old language in which they spoke, made those fierce and barbarous recitals doubly striking to Quentin Kennedy, who heard them with something bordering on astonishment, for the English press had no "own correspondents" then, to let the people at home know what was enacted abroad. "Then, senor," said Ignacio Noam, "it was Baltasar de Saldos who suggested the singular death to which the Spanish regiment of Navarre put the timid Italian, Filangheri." "And this mode of death?" asked Quentin, whom, sooth to say, the grim energy and suddenly developed ferocity of the hitherto jolly muleteers somewhat scared. "I shall tell you," said Ramon, "for I saw it. You must know, senor soldado, that this Italian was Governor of Corunna and a loyal cavalier to the King; but, terrified or hopeless by the overwhelming power of Bonaparte, he showed some signs of wavering, and refused to issue a proclamation of war against the French." "Might it not have been wisdom to temporize for a time?" "Santos! this is no time for trifling; so Baltasar rushed among the soldiers of our regiment of Navarre, and incited them to seize the governor at Villa Franca-del-Vierzo, a town on the road which leads from Corunna to Madrid, where they dragged him, almost naked, from the Marquis's palace.