priest was left unable to speak, and did not recover for months.

Later Leyba had torture by water applied to Father Gregorio Cabrero
and lay brother Venancio Aguinaco, while Father Sabanda was savagely
beaten.

On the 19th of September Father Miguel Garcia of Reina Mercedes was
horribly beaten in his _convento_ by a captain sent there to get what
money he had.

In Cauayan, on September 20, Fathers Perez and Aguirrezabal were
beaten and compelled to give up money by five emissaries of Leyba,
and the latter priest was cut in the face with a sabre. The _convento_
was sacked. On the 25th Leyba arrived and after kicking and beating
Father Garcia compelled him to give up $1700. He then informed the
priests that if it were not for Aguinaldo's orders he would kill all
the Spaniards.

On the afternoon of the 24th three priests and a Spaniard named Soto
arrived at Ilagan. The following is the statement of an eye-witness
as to what happened:--

"They led the priests to the headquarters of the commanding officer
where the tyrant Villa, always eager to inflict suffering on humanity,
awaited them. The scene witnessed by the priests obeisant to the
cruel judge was horrifying in the extreme. Four lions whose thirst
for vengeance was extreme in all, threw themselves, blind with fury,
without a word and with the look of a basilisk, upon poor Senor Soto
giving him such innumerable and furious blows on head and face that
weary as he was from his past journey, the ill-treatment received
at Angadanan and weighted down by years, he was soon thrown down
by his executioners under the lintel of the door getting a terrible
blow on the head as he fell; even this did not satisfy nor tame down
those fierce-hearted men, who on the contrary continued with their
infamous work more furious than before, and their cruelty did not
flag on seeing their victim at their feet. They could have done no
worse had they been Silipan savages dancing in triumph around the
palpitating head cut from the body of some enemy.

"The priests who witnessed this blood-curdling scene trembled like
the weak reed before the gale, waiting their turn to be tortured,
but God willed that cruel Villa should be content with the butchery
perpetrated upon unhappy Sr. Soto. Villa dismissed the priests after
despoiling them of their bags and clothes telling them, to torment
them: 'Go to the _convento_ until the missing ones turn up so that
I may shoot you all together.'"

Leyb