[The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) by Dean C. Worcester]@TWC D-Link bookThe Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) CHAPTER VI 35/55
That same night these treacherous and ferocious tyrants whose sin made them hate the light, buried the body in the darkness of the night in a patch of cogon grass adjoining the _convento_." Piera's torture was by no means confined to this last night of his life, as the following account of it shows:-- "In the first days of this accursed month, while the padres were bemoaning their fate in jail, a dark drama was being enacted in the _convento_, whose hair-raising scenes would have inspired terror to Montepiu himself. "Lieutenant Salvador Piera of the Guardia Civil, commanding officer at Aparri, who, realizing that all resistance was useless, gave way to the persistent solicitations of Spaniards and natives and surrendered that town on honourable terms, which the Katipunan forces did not respect after the capitulation had been signed, was sent for by Villa, the military authority of Isabela.
Something terrible was going to happen as Piera himself felt confident, for it is said that before leaving Aparri he went to confession where he settled the important business of his conscience in a Christian manner with a representative of God. "And so it turned out, for as soon as he arrived in Ilagan he was taken to the _convento_ and placed incomunicado in one of its apartments.
Soon after, three or four vile fiends,--for they do not deserve the name of men,--bound him with strong cords and hanged him to a beam.
Then they began to charge him with having prosecuted a certain Mason, and inflicted upon him the most frightful tortures.
The pen refuses to set forth so many atrocities.
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