a hospitable reception, all the housewives of the
city at once set about preparations for a sumptuous feast, to which the
Spaniards did ample justice, while the colonel and his officers were
entertained by Senator Gerrit at his own house. As soon as this
conviviality had come to an end, Romero, accompanied by his host, walked
into the square. The great bell had been meantime ringing, and the
citizens had been summoned to assemble in the Gast Huis Church, then used
as a town hall. In the course of a few minutes five hundred had entered
the building, and stood quietly awaiting whatever measures might be
offered for their deliberation. Suddenly a priest, who had been pacing to
and fro before the church door, entered the building, and bade them all
prepare for death; but the announcement, the preparation, and the death,
were simultaneous. The door was flung open, and a band of armed Spaniards
rushed across the sacred threshold. They fired a single volley upon the
defenceless herd, and then sprang in upon them with sword and dagger. A
yell of despair arose as the miserable victims saw how hopelessly they
were engaged, and beheld the ferocious faces of their butchers. The
carnage within that narrow apace was compact and rapid. Within a few
minutes all were despatched, and among them Senator Gerrit, from whose
table the Spanish commander had but just risen. The church was then set
on fire, and the dead and dying were consumed to ashes together.

Inflamed but not satiated, the Spaniards then rushed into the streets,
thirsty for fresh horrors. The houses were all rifled of their contents,
and men were forced to carry the booty to the camp, who were then struck
dead as their reward. The town was then fired in every direction, that
the skulking citizens might be forced from their hiding-places. As fast
as they came forth they were put to death by their impatient foes. Some
were pierced with rapiers, some were chopped to pieces with axes, some
were surrounded in the blazing streets by troops of laughing soldiers,
intoxicated, not with wine but with blood, who tossed them to and fro
with their lances, and derived a wild amusement from their dying agonies.
Those who attempted resistance were crimped alive like fishes, and left
to gasp themselves to death in lingering torture. The soldiers becoming
more and more insane, as the foul work went on, opened the veins of some
of their victims, and drank their blood as if it were wine. Some of