fficer, Don Juan Hugalde, although Zumalacarregui had offered
to give a Christino officer and two sergeants in exchange for him. This
was followed by numerous similar acts of cruelty, which at last were
cause that Villareal, by order of Zumalacarregui, shot more than a
hundred prisoners who had been taken a short time previously at a
village near Vittoria. Fortunately, at that particular period, the
prisoners on neither side were very numerous. In an action near Segura,
Leopold O'Donnell, cousin of the present governor of the Havannah, and
son of the well-known Count of Abisbal, fell into the hands of the
Carlists, with four other officers and a number of rank and file. The
five officers were shot, in retaliation for some recent execution of
Carlist prisoners; but Zumalacarregui, willing to make another effort
for the establishment of a more humane system, spared the lives of the
men, and ordered that seven amongst them who were wounded should be
taken care of, and, when cured, sent back to Pampeluna. In return for
this act of mercy, Quesada shot every prisoner he had, wounded or not.
Amongst others, a Captain Bayona, who had received two desperate wounds,
and was at the point of death, was dragged from his bed and shot on the
public square of the village of Lacunza. Zumalacarregui might have
repaid this atrocity by the slaughter of the Christino prisoners who
were still in his power, but having promised them their lives, he would
not recall his word.

A few days after this, four officers were made prisoners by Iturralde,
who entered the town of Los Arcos with a battalion, and captured them
before they had time to retreat to the fort. Quesada feeling very sure
of the fate reserved for them, hit upon a stratagem by which he hoped to
save their lives. He caused to be arrested at Pampeluna the parents of
several Carlist officers of rank, shut them up in the citadel, and sent
confessors to them. They were to be shot, he said, the very moment he
should learn the death of the officers whom Iturralde had taken. The
unfortunate captives begged permission to write to their sons and
relatives in the Carlist army, and this request, which was what Quesada
had reckoned upon, was granted. Those to whom the letters were sent
presented themselves before Zumalacarregui in the most profound
affliction, and implored him to show mercy to the four men on whose
lives depended the existence of persons so dear to them. But
Zumalacarregui, who