MURDER OF VICE-PRESIDENT P L 0 R E S. 197 



him with it, tore off his cap, and dragged him by the 

 hair. He escaped from these furies and ran up into 

 the pulpit. The alarm-bell was sounded, and all the 

 rabble of the town poured into the plaza. A few sol- 

 diers endeavoured to cover the entrance to the church, 

 but were assailed with stones and clubs ; and the mob, 

 bearing down all opposition, forced its way into the 

 church, making the roof ring with cries of Death to 

 the heretic !" Rushing toward the pulpit, some tried 

 to unhinge it, others to scale it ; others struck at the 

 unhappy vice-chief with knives tied to the ends of long 

 poles ; while a young fiend, with one foot on the mould- 

 ings of the pulpit and the other elevated in the air, 

 leaned over and seized him by the hair. The curate, 

 who was in the pulpit with him, frightened at the tem- 

 pest he had assisted to raise, held up the Holy of Ho- 

 lies, and begged the mob to spare him, promising that 

 he should leave the city immediately. The unhappy 

 Flores, on his knees, confirmed these promises ; but the 

 friars urged on the mob, who became so excited with 

 religious phrensy, that, after kneeling before the figure 

 of the Saviour, exclaiming, We adore thee, oh Lord, 

 we venerate thee," they rose up with the ferocious cry, 

 but for thy honour and glory this blasphemer, this 

 heretic, must die !" They dragged him from the pulpit 

 across the floor of the church, and in the cloisters threw 

 him into the hands of the fanatic and furious horde, 

 when the women, like unchained furies, with their fists, 

 sticks, and stones, beat him to death. His murderers 

 stripped his body, leaving it, disfigured and an object 

 of horror, exposed to the insults of the populace, and 

 then dispersed throughout the city, demanding the 

 heads of Liberals, and crying Viva la Religion, y mu- 

 eran los heregos del Congresso." About the same time 



