It would be sickening to describe the horrid scenes which mutual retaliation produced. Several of the Empecinado’s followers, who were surprised in the mountains of Guadarama, were nailed to the trees, and left there to expire slowly by hunger and thirst. To the same trees, before a week elapsed, a similar number of French soldiers were affixed by the guerillas. Two of the inhabitants of Madrid, who were suspected of communicating with the brigands, as the French termed the armed Spaniards, were tried by court-martial, and executed at their own door. The next morning, six of the garrison were seen hanging from walls besides the high road. Some females related to Palarea, surnamed the Medico, had been abused most scandalously by the escort of a convoy, who had seized them in a wood; and in return the guerilla general drove into an Ermida eighty Frenchmen and their officers, set fire to the thatch, and burned them to death, or shot them in their endeavours to leave the blazing chapel. Such were the dreadful enormities a system of retaliation caused. These desperate adventurers were commanded by men of the most dissimilar professions. All were distinguished by some _sobriquet_, and these were of the most opposite descriptions. Among the leaders were friars and physicians, cooks and artisans; while some were characterized by a deformity, and others named after the form of their waistcoat or hat. Worse epithets described many of the minor chiefs,-- truculence and spoliation obtained them titles; and, strange as it may appear, the most ferocious band that infested Biscay was commanded by a woman named Martina. So indiscriminating and unrelenting was this female monster in her murder of friends and foes, that Mina was obliged to direct his force against her. She was surprised, with the greater part of her banditti, and the whole were shot upon the spot. Of all the guerilla leaders the two Minas were the most remarkable for their daring, their talents, and their successes. The younger, Xavier, had a short career--but nothing could be more chivalrous and romantic than many of the incidents that marked it. His band amounted to a thousand--and with this force he kept Navarre, Biscay, and Aragon in confusion; intercepted convoys, levied contributions, plundered the custom-houses, and harassed the enemy incessantly. The villages were obliged to furnish rations for his troops, and the French convoys supplied him with money and ammunition. His escapes were often marvellous.[80] He swam flooded rivers deemed impassable, and climbed precipices hitherto untraversed by a human foot. Near Estella he was forced by numbers to take refuge on a lofty rock; the only accessible side he defended till nightfall, when, lowering himself and followers by a rope, he brought his party off without the loss of a man.