The man Salceda,[128] whom I mentioned in former despatches, has paid a heavy penalty for his crime; what that crime was I do not know, but it must needs have been monstrous to deserve so dreadful a doom. Only one instance of such a punishment is found in the whole history of Rome, viz. when Hostilius inflicted it on Fuffetius. Whether he conspired against the life of Alençon or the King, or both, I am not certain. He was condemned to be torn asunder by four horses. As soon as the horses began to pull, he said he had something more to confess. When his confession had been taken down by a notary, he asked to have his right hand released,[129] and when this was done, he wrote something more, or at any rate signed his name. When his hand had again been fastened to the traces, and the horses, being started in different directions, had made two distinct pulls, and yet failed to pull him in two, he called out to the King, who with his mother and wife was looking on from a window, imploring mercy. Then his neck was broken, his head severed from his shoulders, and his heart torn out. The rest of his body was pulled asunder by the horses. His head was sent to Antwerp, with orders to have it stuck on the highest pinnacle in the city. Such was the end of a wretch monstrous alike in his wickedness, and in his audacity. Here is a specimen. He purchased an estate, and paid for it in bad money which he himself had coined. The vendor discovered the fraud, brought an action for treason against Salceda, and so recovered his house and land. Salceda saved himself by flight from the customary punishment, otherwise he would have been put to death with boiling oil, but nevertheless he took means to have fire set to the aforesaid house at night, and the owner was within an ace of perishing with the building. When the King, who sometimes visited his place of confinement, upbraided him for his cruelty in trying to destroy by such a fearful death the man whom he had already cheated. ‘Well,’ quoth Salceda, ‘when he wanted to have me _boiled_, was it unreasonable that I should try to have him _roasted_?’ What a fund of wit the scoundrel must have had, when even at such a time he must crack his jokes! I am afraid that Count Egmont’s brother is seriously compromised by Salceda’s evidence.[130] October 1, 1582. LETTER IX. Biron has halted on the banks of the Somme, and intrenched himself. Some think that he will remain there for a time to observe the development of the Prince of Parma’s plans, and watch the result; for they say that the daily losses of the Spanish army from famine and pestilence are very heavy. The Netherland letter carrier, who, as I mentioned, was detained here, having given security through responsible people, that he was conveying no letters save those of merchants, was allowed to proceed on his way to Spain.