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Saragossa: A Story of Spanish Valor

by Benito Pérez Galdós · English · Gutenberg #47769 · 423,966 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Saragossa: A Story of Spanish Valor

Author: Benito Pérez Galdós

Translator: Minna Caroline Smith


        
Release date: December 24, 2014 [eBook #47769]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SARAGOSSA: A STORY OF SPANISH VALOR ***

Saragossa




 _When the other events of the Spanish war shall be lost in the
 obscurity of time, or only traced by disconnected fragments, the story
 of Zaragoza, like some ancient triumphal pillar standing amidst ruins,
 will tell a tale of past glory, and already men point to the heroic
 city and call her Spain._


                                            NAPIER'S "_Peninsular War_"




                               SARAGOSSA

                       A Story of Spanish Valor

               AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE ORIGINAL

                                  OF

                            B. PÉREZ GALDÓS

                                  BY

                         MINNA CAROLINE SMITH




                                BOSTON

                      LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
                                 1899




                          _Copyright, 1899_,
                     BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

                         _All rights reserved_




                           University Press
                JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.




TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION


"Saragossa" is the sixth volume in the brilliant series of historical
novels by B. Pérez Galdós, which begins with "Trafalgar" and closes
with "The Battle of the Arapiles," embracing "The Court of Carlos IV,"
"Gerona," and "Napoleon in Chamartin."

B. Pérez Galdós, possibly known best in the United States as the author
of "Doña Perfecta," may be called the Walter Scott of Spain. He is,
however, truer to history than Scott, and the characters he creates
move in an atmosphere of reality rather than romance. "Saragossa"
is one of the most powerful, impressive, and popular of the twenty
novels wherein he tells the gallant story of his native land. This
tale of the second siege of the ancient Aragon city by the generals of
Napoleon is a work of art, one that stirs the blood with admiration
of the indomitable valor of the Spaniards; yet is it not also a
document of special pleading for the world's peace? "Saragossa" ranks
with Tolstoi's "War and Peace," and Zola's "La Débâcle," among great
dramatic war novels. Herein also are at least three of the best drawn
characters in international literature,--the masterly miser Candiola,
his beautiful daughter Mariquilla, and that valiant and lovable
citizen, Don José de Montoria. Manuela Sancho appears as a minor
character, the "Maid of Saragossa" whose bravery is honored in a street
named for her in her native city. She is a type of the daughters of
Saragossa, for more than one of them, in the exaltation of the terrific
struggle against the French, extended their patriotic services beyond
those gentle ones usual to women in besieged cities, rallying soldiers
and serving guns.

The events leading up to the siege of Saragossa are a part of the
history of Spain in her struggle for continued national existence
against the encroachments of Napoleon. Although it was national
warfare, each province and strong provincial city made its own
individual stand. Therefore words like those quoted on a preceding
page from Napier's "Peninsular War" have an especial significance.
The English general's words are doubly striking when read in
connection with these of Galdós, "Men of little sense--without any
on occasion--the Spanish to-day, as ever, make a thousand blunders,
stumbling and rising in the struggle of their inborn vices with the
eminent qualities which they still preserve. Providence holds in store
for this people great advancings and abasements, great terrors and
surprises, apparent deaths and mighty resurrections."

The threatened loss of her nationality was the terror which hung above
Spain in the dark days of 1808. Her court was rent with factions;
her royal house was divided against itself. Three parties had made
dissension in the palace and among the people. One was the party of
the King Carlos IV; one was that of his son, Prince Ferdinand; the
third, of a most insidious power, was that of Don Manuel Godoy, whose
ambitions and pretensions were supported by the queen. A corrupt court
and an intriguing priesthood had promoted the troubles of Spain,
causing king, prince, and favorite, each and separately, to make
application to Napoleon for protection, and for the support of their
various plans. The imbecility of the Spanish Bourbons at such an hour
in European history was inevitable in its influence upon the Emperor of
the French. His ambition grew with this new opportunity. Under the mask
of operating with Spain against Portugal, Napoleon filled the Peninsula
with French troops under generals like Junot and Moncey and Lannes.
The Spanish king and prince were already in France, and practically
in durance there, before the people realized the danger which was
close upon their very existence as a nation. Popular insurrections at
Toledo and Madrid followed immediately upon the appointment of Murat
to a place in the government. The abdication at Bayonne of Carlos IV
in favor of Napoleon, and the appointment of Joseph Bonaparte as king
of Spain, with the consent of ninety-one Spanish nobles, roused the
Peninsula into a spontaneous and determined revolt. War against the
French invaders was already raging in every province when King Joseph
was crowned at Madrid on July 24. Thus in the virtue of her people
began the long struggle of Spain for independence as a nation,--a
struggle which was destined not to end until England came to her aid,
and the Duke of Wellington delivered her from the power of France.

Saragossa, although situated in an admirably strong strategic position
between the French border and the Spanish capital, was not occupied by
the French in force at first, because the character of the Saragossans
made it unwise to attempt to place a small body of foreign troops
among them, and Saragossa--Zaragoza in Spanish--had no citadel.
Napoleon himself could not foresee what a tremendous defence would
be made, nor that fifty thousand dead would yet speak from this city
of Aragon to arouse the courage of Spain. The first siege lasted from
mid-June to mid-August, and was raised not only because the defence
was fierce, desperate, and unflinchingly prolonged, and because the
besieging army under Verdier was greatly weakened, but also because
disasters to the French arms elsewhere made its abandonment imperative.
After the invaders had been victorious at Tudela, Aragon was open to
them. Forty thousand French troops--General Napier says thirty-five
thousand--besieged the capital of the province whither a large part
of the army of Castaños and many other fugitives had fled after their
defeat.

The second and successful siege, with whose events this novel is
occupied, continued for two long and fatal months, from the twentieth
of December of that same dark year until the twenty-first of the
following February. During this time of horror and of bravery, there
were also laughter and song, dancing and love-making in Saragossa, and
such an idyl of tenderness and passion as this story of Augustine and
Mariquilla which is now offered to readers of English.

                                                               M. C. S.




SARAGOSSA

A STORY OF SPANISH VALOR




CHAPTER I


It was, I believe, the evening of the eighteenth when we saw Saragossa
in the distance. As we entered by the Puerta de Sancho we heard the
clock in the Torre Nueva strike ten. We were in an extremely pitiful
condition as to food and clothing. The long journey we had made from
Lerma through Salas de los Infantes, Cervera, Agreda, Tarazona, and
Borja, climbing mountains, fording rivers, making short cuts until we
arrived at the high road of Gallur and Alagon, had left us quite used
up, worn out, and ill with fatigue. In spite of all, the joy of being
free sweetened our pain.

We were four who had succeeded in escaping between Lerma and Cogollos
by freeing our innocent hands from the rope that bound together so many
patriots. On the day of the escape, we could count among the four of
us a total capital of eleven reales; but after three days of marching,
when we entered the metropolis of Aragon and balanced our mutual cash,
our common wealth was found to be a sum total of thirty-one cuartos. We
bought some bread at a little place next the Orphanage, and divided it
among us.

Don Roque, who was one of the members of our expedition, had good
connections in Saragossa, but this was not an hour to present ourselves
to any one. We postponed until the next day this matter of looking
up friends; and as we could not go to an inn, we wandered about the
city, looking for a shelter where we could pass the night. The market
scarcely seemed to offer exactly the comfort and quiet which our
tired bodies needed. We visited the leaning tower, and although one
of my companions suggested that we should take refuge in the plaza, I
thought that we should be quite the same as if altogether in the open
country. The place served us, none the less, for temporary refuge and
rest, and also as a refectory, where we despatched happily our supper
of dry bread, glancing now and then at the great upright mass of the
tower, whose inclination made it seem like a giant leaning to see
who was running about his feet. By the light of the moon that brick
sentinel projected against the sky its huddled and shapeless form,
unable to hold itself erect. The clouds were drifting across its top,
and the spectator looking from below trembled with dread, imagining
that the clouds were quiet and that the tower was moving down upon him.
This grotesque structure, under whose feet the overburdened soil has
settled, seems to be forever falling, yet never falls.

We passed through the avenue of the Coso again from this house of
giants as far as the Seminary. We went through two streets, the Calle
Quemada and the Calle del Rincon, both in ruins, as far as the little
plaza of San Miguel. From here, passing from alley to alley, and
blindly crossing narrow and irregular streets, we found ourselves
beside the ruins of the monastery of Santa Engracia, which was blown
up by the French at the raising of the first siege. The four of us
exclaimed at once in a way to show that we all thought the same thing.
Here we had found a shelter, and in some cosy corner under this roof we
would pass the night!

The front wall was still standing with its arch of marble, decorated
with innumerable figures of saints which seemed undisturbed and
tranquil as if they knew nothing of the catastrophe. In the interior
we saw broken arches and enormous columns struggling erect from the
debris, presenting themselves, darkling and deformed, against the
clear light flooding the enclosure, looking like fantastic creatures
generated by a delirious imagination. We could see decorations,
cornices, spaces, labyrinths, caverns, and a thousand other fanciful
architectural designs produced by the ruins in their falling. There
were even small rooms opened in the spaces of the walls with an
art like that of Nature in forming grottos. The fragments of the
altar-piece that had rotted because of the humidity showed through the
remains of the vaulting where still hung the chains which had suspended
the lamps. Early grasses grew between the cracks of the wood and stone.
Among all this destruction there were certain things wholly intact, as
some of the pipes of the organ and the grating of the confessional. The
roof was one with the floor, and the tower mingled its fragments with
those of the tombs below. When we looked upon such a conglomeration
of tombs, such a myriad of fragments that had fallen without losing
entirely their original form, and such masses of bricks and plaster
crumbled like things made of sugar, we could almost believe that the
ruins of the building had not yet settled into their final position.
The shapeless structure appeared to be palpitating yet from the shock
of the explosion.

Don Roque told us that beneath this church there was another one where
they worshipped the relics of the holy martyrs of Saragossa; but the
entrance to this subterranean sanctuary was closed up. Profound silence
reigned, but, penetrating further, we heard human voices proceeding
from those mysterious deeps. The first impression produced upon us by
hearing these voices was as if the spirits of the famous chroniclers
who wrote of the Christian martyrs, and of the patriots sleeping in
dust below, were crying out upon us for disturbing their slumbers.

On the instant, in the glare of a flame which illuminated part of the
scene, we distinguished a group of persons sheltering themselves,
huddling together in a space between two of the fallen columns. They
were Saragossa beggars, who had made a palatial shelter for themselves
in that place, seeking protection from the rain with beams of wood and
with their rags. We also made ourselves as comfortable as might be
in another place, and covering ourselves with a blanket and a half,
prepared to go to sleep.

Don Roque said to me, "I know Don José de Montoria, one of the richest
citizens of Saragossa. We were both born in Mequinenza. We went to
school together, and we played our games together on the hills of
Corregidor. It is thirty years since I have seen him, but I believe
that he will receive us well. Like every good Aragonese, he is all
heart. We will find him, fellows; we will see Don José de Montoria. I
am of his blood on the maternal side. We will present ourselves to him.
We will say--"

But Don Roque was asleep, and I also slept.




CHAPTER II


The place where we lay down did not by any blandishments invite us to
sleep luxuriously until morning, and certainly a mattress of broken
stones is conducive to early rising. We wakened with the dawn; and as
we had to spend no time in making a toilet before a dressing-table, we
were soon ready to go out and pay our visits.

The idea came to all four of us at once that it would be a good thing
to have some breakfast, but at the same time we agreed unanimously that
it was impossible, as we had not the wherewithal to carry out such a
high purpose.

"Don't be discouraged, boys," said Don Roque; "because very soon I will
take you all to the house of my friend, who will take good care of us."

While he was saying this, we saw emerging from our inn two men and a
woman, of those who had been our companions there. They looked as if
they were accustomed to sleep in the place. One of them was a cripple,
a poor unfortunate who ended at his knees, and put himself in motion
by the aid of crutches, swinging himself forward on them as if by oars.
He was an old man, with a jovial face well burned by the sun. As he
saluted us very pleasantly in passing, wishing us a good-morning, Don
Roque asked him in what part of the city was the house of Don José de
Montoria. The cripple replied:--

"Don José de Montoria? I know him as if he were the apple of my eye. It
is twenty years since he used to live in the Calle de la Albarderia.
Afterwards he moved to another street, the Calle de la Parra,
then,--but you are strangers, I see."

"Yes, my good friend, we are strangers; and we have come to enlist with
the troops of this brave city."

"Then you were not here on the fourth of August?"

"No, my friend," I answered him; "we were not present at that great
feat of arms."

"You did not see the battle of Eras?" asked the beggar, sitting down in
front of us.

"We did not have that felicity either."

"Well, Don José Montoria was there. He was one of those who pulled the
cannon into place for firing. Well, well, I see that you haven't seen
a thing. From what part of the world do you come?"

"From Madrid," said Don Roque. "So you are not able to tell me where my
dear friend Don José lives?"

"Well, I should think I can, man, well, I should think I can!"
answered the cripple, taking from his pocket a crust of dry bread
for his breakfast. "From the Calle de la Parra he moved to the Calle
de Enmedio. You know that all those houses were blown up. There was
Stephen Lopez, a soldier of the Tenth Company of the First Regiment of
Aragon Volunteers, and he alone, with forty men, himself forced the
French to retire."

"That must have been a fine thing to see!" said Don Roque.

"Oh, if you did not see the fourth of August you have seen nothing,"
continued the beggar. "I myself also saw the fourth of June, because I
was crawling along the Calle de la Paja, and I saw the woman who fired
off the big cannon."

"We have already heard of the heroism of that noble woman," said Don
Roque; "but if you could make up your mind to tell us--"

"Oh, of course. Don José de Montoria is a great friend of the merchant
Don Andrés Guspide, who on the fourth of August was firing from near
the narrow street of the Torre del Pino. Hand-grenades and bullets were
raining all about him, and my Don Andrés stood like a rock. More than a
hundred dead lay about him, and he alone killed fifty of the French."

"Great man, this one! And he is a friend of my friend?"

"Yes, señor," replied the cripple; "and they are two of the best
gentlemen in all Saragossa, and they give me a little something every
Saturday. For you must know that I am Pepe Pallejas, and they call me
Sursum Corda, as twenty-four years ago I was sacristan of the Church of
Jesus, and I used to sing----But this is not coming to the point, and I
was going on to say I am Sursum Corda, and perhaps you have heard about
me in Madrid?"

"Yes," said Don Roque, yielding to his generous impulses; "it seems to
me that I have heard the Señor Sursum Corda mentioned there, haven't
we, boys?"

"Well, it's likely, and you must know that before the siege I used to
beg at the door of this monastery of Santa Engracia, which was blown up
by the bandits on the thirteenth of August. I beg now at the Puerta
de Jerusalem, at the Jerusalem Gate--where you will be able to find
me whenever you like. Well, as I was saying, on the fourth of August
I was here, and I saw Francisco Quilez come out of the church, first
sergeant of the First Company of fusileers, who, you must already know,
with thirty-five men, cast out the bandits from the Convent of the
Incarnation. I see that you look surprised--yes! Well, in the orchard
of the convent at the back is where the Lieutenant Don Miguel Gila
died. There are at the least two hundred bodies in that orchard; and
there Don Felipe San Clement, a merchant of Saragossa, broke both his
legs. Indeed, if Don Miguel Salamero had not been present--don't you
know anything about that?"

"No, sir, my friend," said Don Roque; "we don't know anything about
it, and although we have the greatest pleasure in your telling us of
so many wonders, what most concerns us now is to find out where we
are going to find my old friend Don José. We four are suffering from
a disease called hunger, which cannot be cured by listening to the
recounting of sublimities."

"Well, now, in a minute I will take you where you want to go," replied
Sursum Corda, offering us a part of his crust; "but first I will tell
you something, and that is that if Don Mariano Cereso had not defended
the Castle Aljaferia as he did defend it, nothing would have been done
in the Portillo quarter. And this man, by the grace of God, this man
was Don Mariano Cereso! During the attack of the fourth of August, he
used to walk in the streets with his sword in its antique sheath. It
would terrify you to see him! This Santa Engracia quarter seemed like
a furnace, señors. The bombs and the hand-grenades rained down; but
the patriots did not mind them any more than so many drops of water.
A good part of the convent fell down; the houses trembled, and all
this that we see seemed no more than a barrier of playing cards, by
the way it caught fire and crumbled away. Fire in the windows, fire
at the top, fire at the base! The French fell like flies, fell like
flies, gentlemen. And as for the Saragossans, life and death were all
the same to them. Don Antonio Quadros went through there, and when
he looked at the French batteries, he was in a state to swallow them
whole. The bandits had sixty cannon vomiting fire against the walls.
You did not see it? Well, I saw it, and the pieces of brick of the
wall and the earth of the parapets scattered like crumbs of a loaf. But
the dead served as a barricade,--the dead on top, the dead below, a
perfect mountain of the dead. Don Antonio's eyes shot flame. The boys
fired without stopping. Their souls were all made of bullets! Didn't
you see it? Well, I did, and the French batteries were all cleaned out
of gunners. When he saw one of the enemy's cannon was without men, the
commander shouted, 'An epaulet to the man who spikes that cannon!'
Pepillo Ruiz started and walked up to it as if he was promenading in
a garden among butterflies and may flowers, only here the butterflies
were bullets, and the flowers were bombs. Pepillo Ruiz spiked the
cannon, and came back laughing. And now another part of the convent was
falling down. Whoever was smashed by it, remained smashed! Don Antonio
Quadros said that that did not bother him any, and seeing that the
enemy's batteries had opened a large hole in the wall, went to stuff
it full of bags of wool. Then a bullet struck him in the head. They
brought him here; he said that was nothing either, and died."

"Oh," said Don Roque, impatiently, "we are sufficiently astonished,
Señor Sursum Corda, and the most pure patriotism inflames us to hear
you relate such great deeds; but if you could only make up your mind to
tell us where--"

"Good Lord!" exclaimed the beggar, "who said I wouldn't tell you? If
there is any one thing I know better than another, and have seen most
of anything in my life, it is the house of Don José de Montoria. It is
near the San Pablo. Oh, you did not see the hospital? Well, I saw it.
There the bombs fell like hail; the sick, seeing that the roofs were
falling down, threw themselves from the windows into the street. Others
crawled or rolled down the stairs. The partitions burned, and you could
hear wailings. The lunatics bellowed in their cages like mad beasts.
Many of them escaped and went through the cloisters, laughing and
dancing with a thousand fantastic gestures that were frightful to see.
They came out into the street as on carnival day; and one climbed the
cross in the Coso, where he began a harangue, saying that he was the
River Ebro, and he would run over the city and put out the fire. The
women ran to care for the sick, who were all carried off to Del Pilar
and to La Seo. You could not get through the streets. Signals were
given from the Torre Nueva whenever a bomb was coming, but the uproar
of the people prevented their hearing the bells. The French advanced
by this street of Santa Engracia. They took possession of the hospital
and of the Convent of San Francisco. The fighting began in the quarter
of the Coso, and in the streets thereabouts. Don Santiago Sas, Don
Mariano Cereso, Don Lorenzo Calvo, Don Marcos Simono, Renovales, Martin
Albantos, Vicente Codé, Don Vicente Marraco, and others fearlessly
attacked the French. And behind a barricade made by herself, awaited
them, furious, gun in hand, the Countess de Bureta."

"What a woman, a countess, making barricades and firing guns!" cried
Don Roque, enthusiastically.

"You did not know it?" he returned. "Well, where do you live? The
Señora Maria Consolacion Azlor y Villavicencio, who lives near the Ecce
Homo, also walked through the streets, saying words of good cheer to
those who were discouraged. Afterwards she made them close the entrance
to the street, and herself took the lead of a party of peasants,
crying, 'Here we will all die before we will let them pass!'"

"Oh, what sublime heroism!" exclaimed Don Roque, yawning with hunger.
"How much I should enjoy hearing those tales of heroism told on a full
stomach! So you say that the house of Don José is to be found--"

"It is just around there," said the cripple. "You know already that the
French had entangled themselves and stuck fast near the Arch of Cineja.
Holy Virgin del Pilar, but that was where they killed off the French!
The rest of the day was nothing beside it. In the Calle de la Parra
and the Square of Estrevedes, in the Calles de los Urreas, Santa Fe,
and Del Azoque, the peasants cut the French to pieces. The cannonading
and the roar of that day still ring in my ears. The French burned down
the houses that they could not defend, and the Saragossans did the
same. There was firing on every side. Men, women, and children,--it was
enough to have two hands to fight against the enemy. And you did not
see it? You really have seen nothing at all! Well, as I was saying,
Palafox came out of Saragossa towards--"

"That's enough, my friend," said Don Roque, losing patience. "We are
charmed with your conversation; but if you can take us this instant to
the house of my friend, or direct us so that we can find it, we will go
along."

"In a minute, gentlemen. Don't hurry," replied Sursum Corda, starting
off in advance with all the agility of which his crutches were capable.
"Let us go there. Let us go, with all my heart. Do you see this house?
Well, here lives Antonio Laste, first sergeant of the Fourth Company
of Regulars, and you must know he saved from the treasury sixteen
thousand, four hundred pesos, and took from the French the candles that
they stole from the church."

"Go on ahead, go on, friend," I said, seeing that this indefatigable
talker intended stopping to give all the details of the heroism of
Antonio Laste.

"We shall arrive soon," replied Sursum; "on the morning of the first of
July I was going past here, when I encountered Hilario Lafuente, first
corporal of fusileers of the Parish of Sas, and he said to me, 'To-day
they are going to attack the Portillo;' then I went to see what there
was to see and--"

"We know all about this, already," said Don Roque. "Let us go on fast.
We can talk afterwards."

"This house which you see here burned down and in ruins," continued
the cripple, going around a corner, "is the one that burned on the
fourth, when Don Francisco Ipas, sub-lieutenant of the Second Company
of fusileers of the parish of San Pablo, stood here with a cannon, and
these--"

"We know the rest, my good man," said Don Roque. "Forward, march! and
the faster the better."

"But much better was what Codé did, the farmer of the parish of La
Magdalena, with the cannon of the Calle de la Parra," persisted the
beggar, stopping once more. "When he was going to fire the gun, the
French surrounded him, everybody ran away; but Codé got under the
cannon, and the French passed by without seeing him. Afterwards, helped
by an old woman who brought him some rope, he pulled that big piece of
artillery as far as the entrance of the street. Come, I will show you!"

"No, no, we don't want to see a thing. Go along ahead."

We kept at him, and closed our ears to his tales with so much
obstinacy, that at last, although very slowly, he took us through the
Coso and the Market to the Calle de la Hilarza, the street wherein
stood the house of the person whom we were seeking.




CHAPTER III


But, alas! Don José de Montoria was not in his house, and we found it
necessary to go a little way out of the city to look for him. Two of my
companions, tired of so much going and coming, left us with the idea
of trying on their own account for some military or civil situation.
Don Roque and myself therefore started with less embarrassment on our
trip to the country house, the "torre," of our friend. (They call
country houses torres at Saragossa.) This was situated to the westward
of the town; the place bordered on the Muela road, and was at a short
distance from the Bernardona road. Such a long tramp was not at all the
right thing for our tired bodies, but necessity obliged us to take this
inopportune exercise. We were very well treated when we at last met the
longed-for Saragossan and became the objects of his cordial hospitality.

Montoria was occupied, when we arrived, in cutting down olive-trees on
his place, a proceeding demanded by the military exigencies of the
plan of defence established by the officers in the field, because of
the possibility of a second siege. And it was not our friend alone who
destroyed with his own hands this heritage of his hacienda. All the
proprietors of the surrounding places occupied themselves with the same
task, and they directed the work of devastation with as much coolness
as if they were watering or replanting, or busy with the grape harvest.

Montoria said to us, "In the first siege I cut down my trees on my
property on the other side of the Huerva; but this second siege that is
being prepared for us is going to be much more terrible, to judge by
the great number of troops that the French are sending."

We told him the story of the surrender of Madrid, and as this seemed to
depress him very much, we praised the deeds done at Saragossa between
the fifteenth of June and the fourteenth of August with all sorts of
grandiloquent phrases. Shrugging his shoulders, Don José said, "All
that was possible to be done was done."

At this point Don Roque began to make personal eulogies of me, both
military and civil, and he overdrew the picture so much that he made
me blush, particularly as some of his announcements were stupendous
lies. He said, first, that I belonged to one of the highest families
of lower Andalusia, and that I was present as one of the marine guards
at the glorious battle of Trafalgar. He said that the junta had made
me a great offer of a concession in Peru, and that during the siege of
Madrid I had performed prodigies of valor at the Puerta de los Pozos,
my courage being so great that the French found it convenient after
the capitulation to rid themselves of such a fearful foe, sending me
with other Spanish patriots to France. He added that my ingenuity had
made possible the escape of us four companions who had taken refuge in
Saragossa, and ended his panegyric by assuring Don José that for my
personal qualities also I deserved distinguished consideration.

Meantime Montoria surveyed me from head to foot, and if he observed
the bad cut of my clothes and their many rents, he must also have seen
that they were of the kind used by a man of quality, revealing his
fine, courtly, and aristocratic origin by the multiplicity of their
imperfections. After he had looked me over, he said to me, "Porra! I
shall not be able to enlist you in the third rank of the company of
fusileers of Don Santiago Sas, of which I am captain, but you can enter
the corps where my son is; and if you don't wish to, you must leave
Saragossa, because here we have no use for lazy men. And as for you,
Don Roque, my friend, since you are not able to carry a gun, porra! we
will make you one of the attendants in the army hospital."

When Don Roque had heard all this, he managed to express, by means of
rhetorical circumlocution and graceful ellipses, the great necessity
of a piece of meat for each one of us, and a couple of loaves of bread
apiece. Then we saw the great Montoria scowl, looking at us so severely
that he made us tremble, fearing that we were to be sent away for
daring to ask for something to eat. We murmured timid excuses, and then
our protector, very red in the face, spoke as follows,--

"Is it possible that you are hungry? Porra! Go to the devil with a
hundred thousand porras! Why haven't you said so before? Do I look like
a man capable of letting my friends go hungry? porra! You must know
that I always have a dozen hams hanging from the beams of my storeroom,
and I have twenty casks of Rioja, yes, sir. And you are hungry, and
you did not tell me so to my face without any round-about fuss? That
is an offence to a man like me. There, boys, go in and order them to
cook four pounds of beef and six dozen eggs, and to kill six pullets,
and bring from the wine-cellar seven jugs of wine. I want my breakfast,
too. Let the neighbors come, the workmen, and my sons too, if they are
anywhere about. And you, gentlemen, be prepared to punish it all with
my compliments, porra! You will eat what there is without thanking me.
We do not use compliments here. You, Señor Don Roque, and you, Señor
Don Araceli, are in your own house to-day, porra! to-morrow and always,
porra! Don José de Montoria is a true friend to his friends. All that
he has, all that he owns, belongs to his friends."

The brusque hospitality of the worthy man astonished us. As he did not
receive our compliments with good grace, we decided to leave aside the
artificial formalities of the court, and, assuredly, the most primitive
fashions reigned during the breakfast.

"Why don't you eat more?" Don José asked me. "It seems to me that you
are one of these compliment-makers who expect to live on compliments.
I don't like that sort of thing, my young gentleman. I find it very
trying, and I am going to beat you with a stick to make you eat. There,
despatch this glass of wine! Did you find any better at court? Not by a
long way. Come now, drink, porra! or we shall come to blows." All this
made me eat and drink more than was good for me; but it was necessary
to respond to the generous cordiality of Montoria, and too it was not
worth while to lose his good will for one indigestion more or less.

After the breakfast, the work of cutting down trees was continued, and
the rich farmer directed it as if it were a festival performance.

"We will see," he said, "if this time they will dare to attack the
Castle. Have you not seen the works that we have built? They will find
it a very complicated task to take them. I have just given two hundred
bales of wool, a mere nothing, and I would give my last crust."

When we returned to the town, Montoria took us to look over the
defensive works that were built in the western part of the city. There
was in the Portillo gate a large semi-circular battery that joined the
walls of the Convent de los Fecetas with those of the Augustine friars'
convent. From this building to the Convent of the Trinitarios extended
a straight wall, with battlements along all its length and with a
good pathway in the centre. This was protected by a deep moat that
reached to the famous field of Las Eras, scene of the heroic deeds of
the fifteenth of June. Further north, towards the Puerta Sancho, which
protected the breastworks of the Ebro, the fortifications continued,
terminated by a tower. All these works, constructed in haste, though
intelligently, were not distinguished by their solidity. Any one of the
enemy's generals, ignorant of the events of the first siege, and of the
immense moral force of the Saragossans, would have laughed at those
piles of earth as fortifications offering material for an easy siege.
But God ordains that somebody must escape once in a while the physical
laws that rule war. Saragossa, compared with Amberes, Dantzig, Metz,
Sebastopol, Cartagena, Gibraltar, and other famous strongholds, was
like a fortress made of cardboard.

And yet--!




CHAPTER IV


Before we left his house, Montoria became vexed at Don Roque and me
because we would not take the money that he offered us for our first
expenses in the city; then were repeated the blows on the table, and
the rains of "porras" and other words that I will not repeat. But at
last we arrived at an arrangement honorable for both parties.

And now I begin to think I am saying too much about this singular man
before I describe his personality. Don José was a man of about sixty
years of age, strong, high-colored, of over-flowing health, well
placed in the world, contented with himself, fulfilling his destiny
with a quiet conscience. His was an excess of patriotic virtues and
of exemplary customs, if there can be an excess of such things. He
was lacking in education, that is to say, in the finer and more
distinguished training which in that time some of the sons of such
families as his were beginning to receive. Don José was not acquainted
with the superficialities of etiquette, and by character and custom
was opposed to the amenities and the white lies which are a part of
the foundations of courtesy. As he always wore his heart upon his
sleeve, he wished everybody to do the same, and his savage goodness
tolerated none of the frequent evasions of polite conversation. In
angry moments he was impetuous, and let himself be carried to violent
extremes, of which he always repented later. He never dissimulated, and
had the great Christian virtues in a crude form and without polish,
like a massive piece of the most beautiful marble where the chisel
has traced no lines. It was necessary to know him to understand him,
making allowances for his eccentricities, although to be sure he should
scarcely be called eccentric, when he was so much like the majority of
the men of his province.

His aim was never to hide what he felt; and if this occasionally caused
him some trouble in the course of life in regard to questions of little
moment, it was a quality which always proved an inestimable treasure
in any grave matter, because, with his soul wholly on view, it was
impossible to suspect any malice or any double dealing whatever. He
readily pardoned offenders, obliged those who sought favors, and gave a
large part of his numerous goods to those in need. He dressed neatly,
ate abundantly, fasted with much scrupulousness during Lent, and loved
the Virgin del Pilar with a fanatical sort of family affection.

His language was not, as we have shown, a model of elegance, and he
himself confessed, as the greatest of his defects, the habit of saying
porra every minute, and again, porra! without the slightest necessity.
But more than once I heard him say, knowing his fault, he had not been
able to correct it, for the porras came out of his mouth without his
knowing it.

Don José had a wife and three children. She was Doña Leocadia Sarriera,
by birth a Navarraise. The eldest son and the daughter were married,
and had given grandchildren to the old man. The younger son was called
Augustine, and was destined for the church, like his uncle of the
same name, the Archdeacon of La Seo. I made the acquaintance of all
these on the same day, and found them the best people in the world.
I was treated with so much kindness that I was overwhelmed by their
generosity. If they had known me since my birth, they could not have
been more cordial. Their kindness, springing spontaneously from their
generous hearts, touched my very soul; and as I have always had a
faculty for letting people love me, I responded from the first with a
very sincere affection.

"Señor Don Roque," I said that night to my friend as we were going to
bed in the room which was given us, "I have never seen people like
these. Is everybody in Aragon like this?"

"There are all kinds," he answered; "but men made of stuff like Don
José and his family are plentiful in this land of Aragon."

Next day we occupied ourselves with my enlistment. The spirit of the
men who were enlisting filled me with such enthusiasm that nothing
seemed to me so noble as to follow glory, even afar off. Everybody
knows that in those days Saragossa and the Saragossans had obtained
a fabulous renown, that their heroism stimulated the imagination.
Everything referring to the famous siege of the immortal city partook
on the lips of narrators of the proportions and colors of the heroic
age. With distance, the actions of the Saragossans acquired great
dimensions. In England and Germany, where they were considered the
Numantines of modern times, those half-naked peasants, with rope
sandals on their feet and the bright Saragossan kerchief on their
heads, became like figures of mythology.

"Surrender, and we will give you clothes," said the French in the first
siege, admiring the constancy of a few poor countrymen dressed in rags.

"_We do not know how to surrender_," they made answer; "_and our bodies
shall be clothed with glory_."

The fame of this and other phrases has gone round the world.

But let us go back to my enlistment. There was an obstacle in the way,
Palafox's manifesto of the thirteenth of December, in which he ordered
the expulsion of all strangers within a period of twenty-four hours.
This measure was taken on account of the numbers of people who made
trouble, and stirred up discord and disorder; but just at the time of
my arrival another order was given out, calling for all the scattered
soldiers of the Army of the Centre which had been dispersed at Tudela,
and so I found a chance to enlist. Although I did not belong to that
army, I had taken a place in the defence of Madrid and the battle
of Bailen. These were reasons which, with the help of my protector
Montoria, served me in entering the Saragossan forces. They gave me a
place in the battalion of volunteers of the Peñas of San Pedro, which
had been badly weakened in the first siege, and I received a uniform
and a gun. I did not enter the lines, as my protector had said, in the
company of the clergyman of Santiago Sas, because this valiant company
was composed exclusively of residents of the parish of San Pablo.
They did not want any young men in their battalion; for this reason
Augustine Montoria himself, Don José's son, could not serve under the
Sas banner, and enlisted like myself in the battalion of Las Peñas de
San Pedro. Good luck bestowed upon me a good companion and an excellent
friend.

From the day of my arrival I had heard talk of the approach of the
French army; but it was not an incontrovertible fact until the
twentieth. In the afternoon a division arrived at Zuera, on the left
bank of the river, to threaten the suburb; another, commanded by
Suchet, encamped on the right above San Lamberto. Marshal Moncey, who
was the general in command, placed himself, with three divisions, near
the canal, and on both sides of the Huerva. Forty thousand men besieged
us.

It is known that the French, impatient to defeat us, began operations
early on the twenty-first, attacking simultaneously and with great
vigor Monte Torrero, and the Arrabal, the suburb on the left of the
Ebro, points without whose possession it was impossible to dream of
conquering the valiant city. But if we were obliged to abandon Torrero
on account of the danger of its defence, Saragossa displayed in the
suburb such audacious courage that that day is known as one of the most
brilliant of all her brilliant history.

From four o'clock, from day-dawn, the battalion of Las Peñas de San
Pedro guarded the front of the fortifications, from Santa Engracia to
the Convent of Trinitarios, a line which seemed the least exposed in
all the circuit of the city. Behind Santa Engracia was established the
battery of Los Martires; from there ran the battlements of the wall
as far as the Huerva bridge, defended by a barricade; it deflected
afterwards towards the west, making an obtuse angle, and joining
another redoubt built in the Torre del Pino; it continued in a straight
line as far as the Convent of Trinitarios, and enclosed the Puerta del
Carmen.

Whoever has seen Saragossa can well understand my imperfect
description, for the ruins of Santa Engracia still remain, and in the
Puerta del Carmen may still be seen, not far from the Glorieta, its
ruined architrave and worm-eaten stones.

We were, as I have said, occupying the position described, and part of
the soldiers had a bivouac in a neighboring orchard, next to the Carmen
college.

Augustine Montoria and I were inseparable. His serene character, the
affection he showed me from the moment we met, and the inexplicable
concord in our thoughts, made his company very agreeable. He was a
young man of beautiful figure, with large brilliant eyes and open brow,
and an expression marked by a melancholy gravity. His heart, like that
of his father, was filled by generosity which overflowed at the least
impulse; but he was not likely to wound the feelings of a friend,
because education had taken from him a great deal of the national
brusqueness. Augustine entered manhood's estate with the security of a
kind heart, firm and uncorrupted judgment, with a vigorous and healthy
soul; the wide world only was the limit of his boundless goodness.
These qualities were enriched by a brilliant imagination of sure and
direct action, not like that of our modern geniuses, who most of the
time do not know what they are about. Augustine's imagination was lofty
and serene, worthy of his education in the great classics. Although
with a lively inclination to poetry,--for Augustine was a poet,--he
had learned theology, showing ability in this as in everything. The
fathers at the Seminary, who were fond of the youth, looked upon him
as a prodigy in the sciences, human and divine, and they congratulated
themselves on seeing him with one foot at least over the threshold of
the Church.

The Montoria family had many a pleasant anticipation of the day when
Augustine would say his first mass, as a holy event that was fast
approaching. Yet,--I am obliged to say it,--Augustine had no vocation
for the Church. Neither his family nor the good fathers of the
Seminary understood this, nor would they have understood it, even if
the Holy Spirit had come down in person to tell them. This precocious
theologian, this humanist who had Horace at the ends of his fingers,
this dialectician who in the weekly discussions astonished the fathers
with intellectual gymnastics of scholastic science, had no more
vocation for the Church than Mozart for war, Raphael for mathematics,
or Napoleon for dancing!




CHAPTER V


"Gabriel," he said to me one morning, "dost thou not feel like smashing
something?"

"Augustine, dost thou not feel like smashing something?" I responded.
It will be seen that we were "thee-ing" and "thou-ing" each other after
three days' acquaintance.

"Not very much," he said, "suppose the first ball strikes us dead!"

"We shall die for our country, for Saragossa; and although posterity
will not remember us, it is always an honor to fall on the field of
battle for a cause like this."

"You are right," he answered sadly; "but it is a pity to die. We are
young. Who knows for what we are destined in life?"

"Life is a trifle, and its importance is not worth thinking of."

"That is for the aged to say, but not us who are just beginning to
live. Frankly, I do not wish to die in this terrible circle which the
French have drawn about us. In the other siege, however, all the
students of the Seminary took arms, and I confess that I was more
valiant then than now. A peculiar zeal filled my blood, and I threw
myself into places of greatest danger without fear of death. To-day
does not find me the same. I am timid and afraid, and when a gun goes
off, it makes me tremble."

"That is natural. Fear does not exist when one does not realize the
danger. As far as that is concerned, they say the most valiant soldiers
are the raw recruits."

"There is nothing in that. Indeed, Gabriel, I confess that the mere
question of dying does not strike me as the greatest evil. But if I
die, I am going to entrust you with a commission which I hope you will
fulfil carefully like a good friend. Listen well to what I tell you.
You see that tower that leans this way, as if to see what is passing
here, or hear what we are saying?"

"The Torre Nueva? I see it. What charge are you going to give me for
that lady?"

Day was breaking, and between the irregular-tiled roofs of the city,
between the spires and minarets, the balconies and the cupolas of the
churches, the Torre Nueva, old and unfinished, stood out distinctly.

"Listen well!" said Augustine. "If I am killed with the first shot on
this day which is now dawning, when the battle is ended, and they break
ranks, you must go there."

"To the Torre Nueva? Behold me! I arrive. I enter!"

"No, man, not enter. Listen, I will tell you. You arrive at the Plaza
de San Felipe where the tower is. Look yonder! Do you see there near
the great pile there is another tower, a little belfry? It seems like
an acolyte before his lord the canon, which is the great tower."

"Yes, now I see the altar-boy. And if I am not mistaken, it is the
belfry of San Felipe. And the damned thing is ringing this minute!"

"For mass, it is ringing for mass," said Augustine, with great emotion.
"Do you not hear the cracked bell?"

"Very plainly. Let us know what I have to say to this Mr. Altar-boy who
is ringing the cracked bell."

"No, no, it is nothing about him. You arrive at the Plaza of San
Felipe. If you look at the belfry, you will see it is on a corner, and
from this corner runs a narrow street. You enter there, and at the left
you will find at a little distance another street, narrow and retired,
called Anton Trillo. You follow this until you reach the back of the
church. There you will see a house. You stop there--"

"And then I come back again?"

"No; close to the house there is a garden, with a little gateway
painted the color of chocolate. You stop there."

"There I stop, and there I am!"

"No, old man. You will see--"

"You're whiter than your shirt, my Augustine. What do all these towers
and stoppages signify?"

"They mean," continued my friend, with increasing embarrassment, "that
in a little while you will be there. I desire you to go by night. All
right, you arrive there. You stop. You wait a little, then you pass to
the opposite sidewalk. You stretch your neck, and you will see a window
over the wall of a garden. You pick up a pebble and throw it against
the panes of glass lightly, to do little damage."

"And in a second she will come!"

"No; have patience. How do you know whether she will come or not come?"

"Well, let us suppose that she comes."

"Before I tell you another thing, you must understand that it is there
the goodman Candiola lives. Do you know who Candiola is? Well, he is a
citizen of Saragossa, a man who, as they say, has in his house a cellar
full of money. He is avaricious and a usurer, and when he lends he guts
his customers. He knows more about debtors, laws, and foreclosures than
the whole court and council of Castile. Whoever goes to law with him is
lost."

"From all this, the house with a gate painted chocolate color should be
a magnificent palace."

"Nothing of the sort. You will see a wretched-looking house that seems
about to fall down. I tell you that that goodman Candiola is a miser.
He does not waste a real that he can help. And if you should see him
about here you would give him alms. I will tell you another thing;
he is never seen in Saragossa, and they call him goodman Candiola in
mockery and contempt. His name is Don Jeronimo de Candiola; he is a
native of Mallorca, if I am not mistaken."

"And this Candiola has a daughter?"

"Wait, man, how impatient you are! How do you know whether or not he
has a daughter?" he answered, hiding his agitation by these evasions.
"Well, as I was just going to tell you, Candiola is detested in the
city for his great avarice and wicked heart. Many poor men has he put
in prison after ruining them. Worse still, during the other siege he
did not give a farthing for the war, nor take up arms, nor receive the
wounded into his house, nor could they wring a peseta from him; and,
as he said one day it was all one to him whether he gave to John or to
Peter, he was on the point of being arrested."

"Well, he is a pretty piece, this man of the house of the garden of the
chocolate-colored gate! And what if when the pebble strikes the window,
goodman Candiola comes out with a cudgel and gives me a good beating
for flirting with his daughter?"

"Don't be an idiot! Hush! You must know that as soon as it gets dark,
Candiola shuts himself in an underground room, and there he stays
counting his money until after midnight. Bah! He is well occupied now.
The neighbors say they hear a muffled sound as if bags of coins were
being tumbled out."

"Very well. I arrive there. I throw the stone. She comes, and I tell
her--"

"You tell her that I am dead. No, don't be cruel; give her this amulet.
No, tell her--no, it will be better to tell her nothing."

"Then I will give her the amulet?"

"By no means. Do not take the amulet to her."

"Now, now I understand. As soon as she comes I am to say good-night and
march myself away singing, 'The Virgin del Pilar says--'"

"No, it is enough that she learns of my death. You must do as I tell
you."

"But if you don't tell me anything."

"How hasty you are! Wait. Perhaps they'll not kill me to-day."

"True. And what a bother about nothing!"

"There is one thing which I have left out, Gabriel, and I shall tell it
to you frankly. I have had many, very many great desires to confide to
you this secret which weighs upon my breast. To whom could I tell it
but to you, my friend? If I did not tell you, my heart would break like
a pomegranate. I have been greatly afraid of telling it at night in my
dreams. Because of this fear I cannot sleep. If my father, my mother,
my brother, suspected it, they would kill me."

"And the fathers at the Seminary?"

"Don't name the fathers. You shall see. I will tell you what has
befallen me. Do you know Father Rincon? Well, Father Rincon loves me
very much, and every evening he used to make me come out for a walk
by the river or towards Torrero or the Juslibol road. We would talk
of theology and literature. Rincon is so enthusiastic about the great
poet Horace that he used to say, 'It is a pity that that man wasn't a
Christian so that he could be canonized.' He always carries with him
a little Elzevir, which he loves more than the apple of his eye. When
we were tired walking, he would sit down and read, and between the two
of us we would make whatever comments occurred to us. Well, now I will
tell you that Father Rincon was a kinsman of Doña Maria Rincon, the
deceased wife of Candiola, who has a little property in the Monzalbarba
road, with a wretched little country house, more like a hut than a
house, but embowered in leafy trees, and with delightful views of the
Ebro. One afternoon, after we had been reading the _Quis multa gracilis
te puer in rosa_, my teacher desired to visit his relative. We went
there; we entered the garden, and Candiola was not there; but his
daughter came to meet us, and Rincon said to her, 'Mariquilla, get some
peaches for this young man, and get me a glass of you know what.'"

"And is Mariquilla nice?"

"Don't ask that. What if she is nice? You shall see. Father Rincon
stroked his beard, and turning towards me said, 'Augustine, confess
that in your lifetime you have never seen a more perfect face than
this one. Look at those eyes of fire, that angel's mouth, and that bit
of heaven for a brow.' I was trembling, and Mariquilla laughed, her
face all rosy red. Then Rincon continued, saying, 'To you, who are
a future father of the church, an example, a young pattern, without
other passion than that for books, this divinity may show herself.
Jove! admire here the admirable work of the Supreme Creator. Observe
the expression of that face, the sweetness of those glances, the
grace of that smile, the freshness, the delicacy of that complexion,
the fineness of that skin, and confess that if heaven is beautiful,
flowers, mountains, light, all the creations of God are nothing beside
woman, the most perfect and finished work of the immortal hand.'
Thus spoke my teacher, and I, mute and astonished, did not cease to
contemplate that master work which was certainly better than the
Æneid. I cannot tell you what I felt. Imagine the Ebro, that great
river, which descends from its springs to give itself to the sea, all
at once changing its channel and trying to run upward, returning to
the Asturias. The same thing took place in my spirit. I myself was
astonished that all my ideas had been changed from their wonted course
and turned backward, cutting I know not what new channels. I assure you
I was astonished, and I am yet. Looking at her without satisfying the
longing of my soul or of my eyes, I said to myself, 'I love her in a
wonderful way! How is it that until now I have never fallen in love?' I
had never seen Mariquilla until that moment."

"And the peaches?"

"Mariquilla was as much disturbed before me as I before her. Father
Rincon went to talk with the gardener about the encroachments that
the French had made upon the property (that was soon after the first
of September, a month after the raising of the first siege), and
Mariquilla and I remained alone. Alone! My first impulse was to cut and
run; and she, as she has told me, also felt the same. Neither she nor
I ran. We stayed there. All at once I felt an extraordinary movement
of my intellect. Breaking the silence, I began to talk with her. We
talked about all sorts of indifferent things at first, but to me came
thoughts beyond my usual understanding, surpassing the ordinary, and
all, all, all, I uttered. Mariquilla answered me little, but her eyes
were only more eloquent than when I was talking to her. At last Father
Rincon called, and we marched away. I took leave of her, and in a low
voice said that we would soon meet again. We returned to Saragossa.
Yes, the street, the trees, the Ebro, the cupola of the Pilar, the
belfries of Saragossa, the passers-by, the houses, the walls of the
garden, the pavements, the sound of the wind, the dogs of the street,
all seemed different to me, all, heaven and earth had been changed.
My good teacher began to read again in Horace, and I said that Horace
wasn't worth anything. He wished me to dine with him, and threatened me
with the loss of his friendship. I praised Virgil with enthusiasm, and
repeated the celebrated lines--

                     "'_Est mollis flamma medullas
            interea et tacitum vivit sub pectore vulnus._'"

"This was about the first of September," said I, "and since then?"

"From that day a new life began for me. It commenced with a burning
disquiet that robbed me of sleep, making distasteful to me all that was
not Mariquilla. My own father's house was hateful to me; and wandering
about the environs of Saragossa without any companion, I sought peace
for my spirit in solitude. I hated the college, all books and theology,
and when October came, and they wished me to bind myself to live shut
up in the holy house, I feigned illness in order to remain in my own.
Thanks to the war that has made us all soldiers, I have been able to
live free, to go at all hours, day and night, and see and talk with
her frequently. I go to her house, make the signal agreed upon; she
descends, opens her grated window; we talk long hours. People pass by,
but I am muffled in my cloak even up to the eyes. With this and the
darkness of night, no one recognizes me. As far as that is concerned,
the boys in the street ask one another, 'Who is this admirer of the
Candiola?' The other night, fearing discovery, we stopped our talks
at the grating. Mariquilla came down, opened the garden gate, and I
entered. No one could discover us, because Don Jeronimo, believing
her to be in bed, retired to his room to count his money, and the old
servant, the only one in the house, took us under her wing. Alone in
the garden we sat down upon some stone steps and watched the brightness
of the moonlight through the boughs of a great black poplar. In that
majestic silence our souls contemplated the divine, and we experienced
a deep sentiment, beyond words to express. Our felicity is so great
that at times it is a living torment. If there are moments in which one
might desire to be a hundred beings, there are also moments in which
one might desire not to exist. We pass long hours there. The night
before last we were there until daybreak. My teacher believed me to be
with the guards, so I was not obliged to hasten. When morning first
began to dawn, we separated. Over the top of the wall of the garden
appeared the roofs of the neighboring houses and the top of the Torre
Nueva. Pointing it out to me, Mariquilla said, 'When that tower stands
straight, then only shall I cease to love you.'"

Augustine said no more. A cannon-shot sounded from the side of Mount
Torrero, and we both turned in that direction.




CHAPTER VI


The French had assaulted with great vigor the fortified positions
of the Torrero. Ten thousand men defended them, commanded by Don
Philip Saint March and by O'Neill, both generals of great merit. The
volunteers of Bourbon, Castile, Campo Segorbino, of Alicante, and
of Soria, the sharp-shooters of Fernando VII, the Murcia regiment,
and other bodies that I do not remember, answered the fire. From the
redoubt of Los Martires we saw the beginning of the action, and the
French columns which extended the length of the canal and flanked the
Torrero. The fire of the fusileers continued for some time, but the
struggle could not be prolonged very long, for that point could not
be held without the occupation and fortification of others close by,
like Buena Vista, Casa Blanca, and the reservoir of the canal. But
none the less our troops did not retire except slowly and in the best
order, retreating by the Puente de America, and carrying with them all
the pieces of artillery except one, which had been dismantled by the
enemy's fire. Amidst it all we heard a great noise which resounded at
a great distance, and as the fire had almost ceased, we supposed that
there was another battle outside the town.

"There is the Brigadier Don José Manso," said Augustine to me, "with
the Swiss regiment of Aragon, which Don Mariano Walker commands, the
volunteers of Huesca, of whom Don Pedro Villacampa is leader, the
volunteers of Catalonia, and other valiant corps. And here are we, hand
in hand! Along this side it appears to be about finished. The French
will content themselves to-day with the conquest of Torrero."

"Either I am greatly deceived," I replied, "or they are now going to
attack San José."

We all looked at the spot indicated, an edifice of huge dimensions
which arose at our left, separated from the Puerta Quemada by the
valley of the Huerva.

"There is Renovales," said Augustine,--"the brave Don Mariano
Renovales, who distinguished himself so highly in the other siege, who
now commands the troops of Orihuela and of Valencia."

In our position we were all prepared for an energetic defence. In the
redoubt del Pilar, in the battery of Los Martires, in the tower of
Del Pino, the same as in the Trinitarios, the artillery stood guard
with burning matches, and the infantry waited behind the parapets
in positions that seemed to us quite secure, ready to fire if any
columns should attempt to assault us. It was cold, and most of us were
shivering. One might almost have believed that it was from fear; but
no, it was cold, and anybody who had said the contrary would have lied.

The movement which I had foreseen was not slow in taking place, and
the convent of San José was attacked by a strong column of French
infantry. It was an attempt at an attack, or, rather, a surprise. To
all appearances, the enemy had a poor memory, and in three months they
had forgotten that surprises were impossible in Saragossa. None the
less they arrived within gunshot, and doubtless the graceless whelps
believed that merely at sight of them our warriors would fall dead
with fear. The poor men had just arrived from Silesia, and did not
know what manner of warfare there was in Spain. And, furthermore, as
they had gained the Torrero with so little difficulty, they believed
themselves in train to swallow the world. They were advancing thus, as
I have said, and San José was not making any demonstration. When they
were nearly within gunshot of the loopholes and embrasures of that
edifice, all at once these began vomiting such a terrible fire that
my brave Frenchmen took to their heels with the utmost precipitation.
Having had enough doubtless, they remained stretched out at full
length; and upon seeing the outcome of their valor, those of us who
were watching the onset from the battery of Los Martires broke out into
exclamations, applause, cries, and huzzas. In this ferocious manner the
soldier celebrates in battle the death of his fellow-creatures. He who
instinctively feels compassion at the slaying of a rabbit on a hunt
jumps for joy on seeing hundreds of robust men fall,--young, happy men
who have never done harm to anybody.

Such was the attack upon San José, a futile attempt quickly punished.
By that time, the French should have understood that if Torrero was
abandoned, it was by calculation and not on account of weakness. Alone,
embarrassed, deserted, without external defences, without forces
or forts, Saragossa renewed again her earthworks, her defences of
bricks, her bastions of mud heaped up the evening before to be again
defended against the first soldiers, the first artillery, and the first
engineers of the world. Pomp and show of a nation, formidable machines,
enormous quantities of power, scientific preparation of materials,
force, and intelligence in their greatest splendor, the invaders bring
to attack the fortified place which appears to be guarded by boys.
It is indeed almost like this: all succumb, all is reduced to powder
in front of those walls which might be kicked over. But behind this
movable defensive material is the well-tempered steel of Aragon souls,
which cannot be broken or bent, nor cast into moulds, nor crushed, nor
robbed of breath, and which surrounds the whole region like a barrier,
indestructible by human means.

The whole district about the Torre Nueva was resounding with clamors
and alarms. When to this district comes such mournful sounds, the city
is in danger and needs all her sons. What is it? What is passing? What
will happen?

"Matters must be going badly back of the town," said Augustine.

Meanwhile they attacked us yonder to occupy the attention of the crowd
on this side of the river. The same thing was done in the first siege.

"Al arrabal, al arrabal!" was our cry. "To the suburb!"

And while we were saying this, the French sent us some balls to show
us that we must stay where we were. Fortunately Saragossa had enough
people within her walls, and could readily assist and support all parts.

My battalion abandoned the wall near Santa Engracia, and began to march
towards the Coso. We did not know where we were being conducted, but it
is probable that they were taking us to the suburb. The streets were
full of people. Old men and women came out, impelled by curiosity,
wishing to see at close quarters and near at hand the points of danger,
since it was impossible for them to be placed in the same peril. The
streets of San Gil, San Pedro, and La Cuchilleria, which lead to the
bridge, were almost impassable. A great multitude of women were passing
through them, all walking in the direction of the Pilar and La Seo.

The booming of the cannon excited rather than saddened the fervent
people, and all were jostling one another to get nearest the front. In
the Plaza de la Seo, I saw the cavalry which, with all these people,
obstructed the bridge and obliged my battalion to look for an easier
way to the other side. While we were passing before the porch of this
sanctuary, we heard the sound of the prayers wherewith all the women of
the city were imploring their holy patroness. The few men who wished to
come into the temple were expelled by them.

We went to the bank of the river near San Juan de los Panetas, and
took up our place on a mound, awaiting orders. In front and on the
other side of the river, the field of battle was divided. We saw at
the end nearest us the grove of Macanaz, over there and close to the
bridge the little monastery of Altabas, yonder that of San Lazarus, and
further on the Monastery of Jesus. Behind this scene, reflected in the
waters of the great river, could be seen a horrible fire. There was
an interminable turmoil, a hoarse clamor of the voices of cannon and
of human yells. Dense clouds of smoke, renewed unceasingly, mounted
confusedly to the heavens. All the breastworks of this position, which
were constructed with bricks from neighboring brickyards, formed with
the earth of the kilns a reddish mass. One might have believed that
the ground had been mixed together with blood.

The French held their front towards the Barcelona road and the
Juslibol, where more kilns and gardens lie at the left of the second
of those two ways. Thence the Twelfth had furiously attacked our
intrenchments, making their way by the Barcelona road, and challenging
with impetuous intrepidity the cross-fires of San Lazarus and that of
the place called El Marcelo. Their courage lay in striking audacious
blows upon the batteries, and their tenacity produced a veritable
hecatomb. They fell in great numbers; the ranks were broken, and,
being instantly filled by others, they repeated the attack. At times
they almost reached the parapets, and a thousand individual contests
increased the horror of the scene. They went in advance of their
leaders, brandishing their cutlasses, like desperate men who had made
it a question of honor to die before a heap of bricks, and in that
frightful destruction which wrenched the life from hundreds of men
every minute, they disappeared, flung down upon mother earth, soldiers
and sergeants, ensigns, captains, and colonels. It was a veritable
struggle between two peoples; and while the fires of the first siege
were burning in our hearts, the French came on thirsting for vengeance
with all the passion of offended manhood, worse even than the passion
of the warrior.

It was this untimely bloodthirstiness that lost them the day. They
should have begun by demolishing our works with their artillery,
observing the serenity which a siege demands, and not have engaged in
those hand to hand combats before positions defended by a people like
the one that they had met on the fifteenth of July, and the fourth of
August. They ought to have repressed their feeling of contempt or scorn
of the forces of the enemy,--a feeling that has always been the bad
star of the French. It was the same in the war with Spain, as in the
recent conflict with Prussia. They ought to have put into execution a
calmly considered plan which would have produced in the besieged less
of disgust than exaltation.

It is certain that if they carried with them the thought of their
immortal general who always conquered as much by his admirable logic as
by his cannons, they would have employed in the siege of Saragossa a
little of the knowledge of the human heart, without which the pursuit
of war, brutal war--it seems a lie!--is no more than cruel carnage.

Napoleon, with his extraordinary penetration, would have comprehended
the Saragossan character, and would have abstained from attacking the
unprotected columns, whose boast was of individual personal valor. This
is a quality at all times difficult and dangerous to encounter, but
above all in the presence of nations who fight for an ideal and not for
an idol.

I will not go into further details of the dreadful battle of the
twenty-first of December, the most glorious of the second siege of
Aragon. As I did not see it at close quarters, and can only give the
story of what was told me, I am moved not to be prolix, because there
are so many and such interesting adventures which I must narrate.
This makes a certain restraint necessary in the description of these
sanguinary encounters. It is enough now to know that the French
believed when night came that it was time to desist from their purpose,
and they retired, leaving the plain covered with bodies of the dead.
It was a good moment to follow them with cavalry; but after a short
discussion the generals, I am told, decided not to put themselves in
peril in a sally which could only be dangerous.




CHAPTER VII


Night came, and when a part of our troops fell back upon the city, all
of the people hastened to the suburb to look at the field of battle
from near at hand, and to gladden their imaginations by going over, one
by one, the scenes of heroism. The animation, the movement, the clatter
of noise in that part of the city were immense. At one side were groups
of soldiers singing with feverish joy, on the other bands of merciful
people carrying the wounded into their houses. Everywhere was hearty
satisfaction, which showed itself in lively dialogues, question, joyous
exclamations,--tears and laughter mingling with the rejoicings and
enthusiasm.

It was, possibly, about nine o'clock before my battalion broke ranks;
because, lacking quarters, we did not permit ourselves to leave the
position, although there was no danger.

Augustine and I ran to Del Pilar, where a great crowd was rushing.
We entered with difficulty. I was surprised to see how some persons
jostled and pushed others in order to approach the chapel of the
Virgin del Pilar. The prayers, the entreaties, and the demonstrations
of rejoicing, taken all together, did not seem like the prayers of
any class of the faithful. The prayers were like talks mingled with
tears, groans, the most tender words, and other phrases of intimate
and ingenuous affection, such as the Spanish people are wont to use
with their saints that are most beloved. They fell upon their knees;
they kissed the pavement; they grasped the iron gratings of the chapel;
they addressed the holy image, calling it by names the most familiar
and the most pathetic of the language. Those who could not--because of
the crowd of people--come near her were talking to her from afar off,
waving their arms wildly about. There were no sacristans to stop these
wild ways and seemingly irreverent noises, because they were themselves
children of this overflowing delirious devotion. The solemn silence
of sacred places was not observed. All there were as if in their own
house, as if the house of their cherished Virgin, their mother, their
beloved, the queen of Saragossans, were also the house of her children,
her servants and subjects.

Astonished at such fervor which the familiarity made more interesting,
I fought my way to the grating, and saw the celebrated image. Who
has not seen her, who does not know her, at least by the innumerable
sculptures and portraits which have reproduced her endlessly from one
end of the peninsula to the other?

She was at the left of the little altar which is in the depth of the
chapel in a niche adorned with oriental luxury, a little statue, then
as now. A great profusion of wax candles illuminated her, and precious
stones covered her clothing and crown, darting dazzling reflections.
Gold and diamonds gleamed in the circlet about her face, in the votive
bracelets hung upon her breast, and in the rings on her hands. A living
creature would have given way under so great a weight of treasure. Her
garments, falling without folds, stretched straight from head to feet,
and left visible only her hands. The child Jesus, sustained on her left
side, revealed a bit of his brown little face between the brocade and
the jewels. The face of the Virgin, burnished by time, is also brown.
A gentle serenity possesses her, symbol of her eternal blessedness.
She looks outward, her sweet gaze scanning constantly the devoted
concourse. There shines in her eyes a ray of the clearest light, and
this artificial gleam seems like the intensity and fixedness of the
human gaze. It was difficult when I saw her for the first time to
remain indifferent in the midst of that religious demonstration, and
not to add a word to the concert of enthusiastic tongues talking with
distinct voices to the Señora.

I was watching the statue, when Augustine pressed my arm, saying,--

"Look, there she is!"

"Who, the Virgin? I am looking at her now."

"No, man, Mariquilla! There, in front, close to the column."

I looked, but I saw only a great many people. We immediately quitted
our place, looking about for a way to get through the multitude to the
other side.

"She is not with Candiola," said Augustine, joyously. "She has come
with the servant." And, saying this, he elbowed his way to one side
and the other to make a road, punching backs and breasts, stepping
on feet, matting down hats, and rumpling clothing. I followed behind
him, causing equal destruction right and left. At last we came to the
beautiful young girl, and it was really she, as I could see at once
with my own eyes.

The enthusiastic passion of my good friend did not deceive me.
Mariquilla was worth the trouble of being extravagantly, madly loved.
Her pale brunette skin, her deeply black eyes, her perfect nose, her
incomparable mouth, and her beautiful low forehead attracted attention
to her at once. There was in her face as in her body a certain light
and delicate voluptuousness. When she lowered her eyes, it seemed to
me as if a sweet and lovely mist surrounded her. She smiled gravely;
and when she approached us, her looks revealed timidity. Everything
about her showed the reserved and circumspect passion of a woman of
character, and she seemed to me little given to talking, lacking in
coquetry, and poor in artifices. I afterwards had reason to confirm
this, my early judgment. There shone in the face of Mariquilla a
heavenly calm, and a certain security in herself. Different from most
women, like few among them, that soul would not readily change, except
for just and righteous reasons.

Other women of quick sensibility pour themselves out like wax before a
small fire; but Mariquilla was made of the best metal, yielding only to
a great fire, and when that came she was of necessity like molten metal
that burns when it touches.

Besides her beauty, the elegance and even luxury of her dress attracted
my attention. Having heard much of the avarice of Candiola, I supposed
that he would have reduced his daughter to the utmost extremes of
wretchedness in matters of dress. It was not so. As Montoria told me
afterwards, the stingiest of the stingy not only permitted his daughter
some expenses, but now and then made her some little present which he
looked upon as the _ne plus ultra_ of mundane splendor.

If Candiola was capable of letting some of his relations die of
hunger, to his daughter he gave a phenomenal, a scandalous amount of
pocket-money. Although he was a miser, he was a father; he loved his
girl very much, finding in his generosity to her perhaps the only
pleasure of his arid existence.

Somewhat more must be said in regard to this, but it will appear little
by little in the course of the story. And now I must say that my
friend had not yet spoken ten words to his adored Mariquilla, when a
man approached us abruptly, and after having looked at the two for an
instant with flashing eyes, spoke to the young girl, taking her by the
arm, and saying, with a show of anger,--

"What is going on here? And you, good Guedita, what brought you to the
Pilar at such an hour? Go to the house, go to the house immediately!"

And pushing before him mistress and maid, he carried them both off
towards the door and the street, and the three disappeared from our
sight.

It was Candiola. I remember him well, and the remembrance makes me
tremble with horror. Further on you will know why. Since the brief
scene in the church del Pilar, the image of that man has been engraven
on my memory, and certainly his face was not one which would let itself
be quickly forgotten. Old, bent, of miserable and sickly aspect,
crooked and disagreeable, lean of face, with sunken cheeks, Candiola
roused antipathy from the first moment. His nose, sharp and hooked
like the beak of a bird, his chin, peaked also, the coarse hair of
his grizzled eyebrows, the greenish eyes, the forehead furrowed as
if by a ruler with deep parallel wrinkles, the cartilaginous ears,
the yellowish skin, the metallic quality of the voice, the slovenly
clothes, the insulting grimaces,--all his personality from head to
foot, from his bag wig to the sole of his coarse shoe, produced at
sight an unconquerable repulsion. It can readily be understood that he
had not a single friend.

Candiola had no beard; his face, according to the fashion, was quite
clean shaven, although the razor did not enter the field more than once
a week. If Don Jeronimo had had a beard, it would have made him seem
very much like a certain Venetian shop-keeper whom I afterwards came
to know very well, travelling in the great world of books, and in whom
I find certain traits of physiognomy that recalled the man who had so
brusquely presented himself to us in the temple del Pilar.

"Did you see that miserable and ridiculous old man?" Augustine asked me
when we were alone, looking towards the door where the three people had
disappeared.

"He evidently doesn't like his daughter to have admirers."

"But I am sure that he did not see me talking with her. He has
suspicions, nothing more. If he should pass from suspicion to
certitude, Mariquilla and I would be lost. Did you see that look he
threw us, the damned miser?--he is black from his soul to his Satanic
hide."

"Bad sort of father-in-law to have."

"Bad enough," said Montoria, sadly. "He would be dear in exchange for
a spoonful of verdigris! I am sure he will abuse her to-night; but
fortunately he is not in the habit of ill-treating her."

"And would not the Señor Candiola be pleased to see her married to the
son of Don José de Montoria?" I asked.

"Are you mad? I see you talking to him of that! The wretched miser
not only watches his daughter as if she were a bag of gold, and is
not disposed to give her to anybody; but he has also an ancient and
profound resentment against my father, because he freed some unhappy
debtors from his fangs. I tell you, that if he discovers that his
daughter loves me, he will keep her locked up in an iron chest in that
cellar of his where he keeps his hard cash. I don't know what would
happen if my father came to know of it. My flesh creeps just to think
of it. The worst nightmare which disturbs my slumbers is that which
shows me the moment when señor my father and señora my mother learn of
my great love for Mariquilla. A son of Don José de Montoria enamoured
of a daughter of Candiola, a young man who is formally destined to be a
bishop,--a bishop, Gabriel! I am going to be a bishop, in the minds of
my parents!"

Saying this, Augustine dashed his head against the sacred wall on which
we were leaning.

"And do you think you will go on loving Mariquilla?"

"Don't ask me that!" he replied with energy. "Did you see her? If you
saw her, how can you ask me if I will go on loving her? Her father and
mine would rather see me dead than married to her. A bishop, Gabriel,
they wish me to be a bishop! Think of being a bishop and loving
Mariquilla for all of my life, here and hereafter, think of that and
pity me!"

"But God opens unknown ways," I said.

"It is true, and sometimes my faith is boundless. Who knows what
to-morrow will bring forth? God and the Virgin shall guide me
henceforth."

"Are you devoted to this Virgin?"

"Yes. My mother places candles before the one we have in our house,
that I may not fall in battle; and I say to her 'Sovereign Lady, may
this offering also serve to remind you that I cannot cease from loving
the daughter of Candiola.'"

We were in the nave upon which opened the chapel del Pilar. There is
here an aperture in the wall, by which the devout, descending two or
three steps, approach to kiss the pedestal which sustains the revered
image. Augustine kissed the red marble. I kissed it also; then we left
the church to go to our abode.




CHAPTER VIII


The following day, the twenty-second, Palafox said to the messenger who
came under a flag of truce from Moncey to propose terms of surrender.

"_I do not know how to surrender. After death, we will talk about
that._"

He followed this with a long and eloquent article which was published
in the "Gazette;" but, according to general opinion, neither that
document nor any of the proclamations which appeared with the signature
of the commanding general were his own composition, but that of his
friend, Basilio Boggiero, a man of great judgment, who was often seen
in situations of danger, in the company of patriots and military
leaders.

It is excusable to say that the army of the defence was very much
inspired by the glorious action of the twenty-first. It was necessary
to give expression to this ardor, to arrange a sortie, and so in effect
it was done; but it happened that all wished to take part in this at
the same time, and it was necessary to bury the dead. The sorties,
arranged with prudence, were expedient; because the French, extending
their lines around the city, were preparing for a regular siege, and
had begun upon their outer works.

The district of Saragossa contained many people, which seemed to the
common mind a great advantage, but which seemed to the intelligent a
great danger, because of the immense destruction of human life which
hunger would quickly bring,--hunger, that terrible general who is
always the conqueror of overcrowded besieged cities. Because of this
excess of people, the sorties were timely.

Renovales made one on the twenty-fourth with the troops of the fortress
of San José, and cut down an olive grove which hid the works of the
enemy.

Don John O'Neill made a sally from the suburb on the twenty-fifth with
the volunteers of Aragon and Huesca, taking the chance of advantage
from the enemy's lack of preparation, and killing many of the enemy's
men.

On the thirty-first was made the most telling sally of all, striking in
two distinct places and with considerable forces. During the early part
of the day we had divided to perfection the works of the first French
parallel, thrown up about three hundred and twenty yards from the
walls. They were working actively, not resting by night, and we could
see that they had signals of colored lanterns along the whole line.
From time to time we discharged our guns, but we caused very little
destruction. If troops were especially needed for a reconnoissance,
they were despatched in less than no time.

The morning of the thirty-first arrived, and my battalion was charged
to be ready to march upon orders from Renovales to attack the enemy in
their centre, from the Torrero to the Muela road, while General Butron
did the same by the Bernardona, that is to say, by the French left,
sallying with sufficient forces of infantry and cavalry by the gates of
Sancho and Portillo.

In order to distract the attention of the French, the general commanded
that a battalion should be divided into skirmishing parties by the
Tenerias, calling the attention of the enemy in that direction. In the
mean time, with some of the soldiers of Olivenza and part of those of
Valencia, we advanced by the Madrid road straight towards the French
lines. The skirmishing parties were on both sides of the road when
the enemy became aware of our presence, and now we were quicker than
deer in doing up the first troop of French infantry which came to meet
us. Behind a half-ruined country house some fortifications had been
thrown up, and they began firing with good aim and much slaughter. For
an instant we remained undecided, then some twenty men of us flanked
the country house, while the rest followed the high road, pursuing the
fugitives; but Renovales dashed forward and led us on, cutting down and
bayoneting those who were defending the house. At the moment when we
set foot within the first defence I noticed that my rank was thinned
out. I saw some of my companions fall, breathing their last sighs. I
looked to my right, fearing not to find my beloved friend among the
living; but God had preserved him. Montoria and I were unharmed.

We could not spend much time in communicating to each other the
satisfaction that we felt at finding ourselves still alive, because
Renovales gave orders to follow on, in the direction of the line of
intrenchments that the French were raising. We abandoned the high road
and made a deflection, turning to the right with the intention of
joining the volunteers of Huesca, who were attacking by the Muela road.

It may be understood by what I have related that the French did not
expect that sortie, and that, taken completely unawares, they were
holding there, besides the scanty force that kept the works, the
engineers occupied in digging the trenches of the first parallel. We
attacked them vigorously, turning upon them a murderous fire, improving
the minutes well before the dreaded reinforcements should arrive. We
took prisoners those whom we met without arms; we shot those who had
them. We took the picks and spades,--all this with unequalled energy,
animating one another with fiery words, exalted above all by the
thought that they were watching us from the city.

In this attack we were fortunate, for while we were destroying those
at work on the intrenchments, the troops who had made the sortie on
the left were carrying on a successful struggle with the detachments
which the enemy had in the Bernardona. While the volunteers of Huesca,
the grenadiers of Palafox, and the Walloon guards defeated the French
infantry, the squadron of Numancia and Olivenza cavalry cautiously
emerged through the Puerta de Sancho, and making a wide détour
occupied the Alagon road on one side, and the Muela on the other,
exactly when the French drew back from the left to the centre, in need
of greater auxiliary forces. Finding themselves in their element, our
fiery cavalry sprang forward, destroying whatever was encountered in
the way, and then the disgraced infantry, who were fleeing towards
Torrero, fell, and were trampled underfoot.

In their dispersion, many fell beneath our bayonets, and if their
desire to flee from the horses was great, great also was our anxiety
to receive them in manner worthy of our swords. Some ran, throwing
themselves into the trenches, not being able to jump over them; others
surrendered at discretion, throwing down their arms; some defended
themselves with heroism, permitting themselves to be slain before
giving up; and at the last there failed not a few who, shutting
themselves up in the brick kiln filled up with boughs and timber,
set fire to it, preferring to die by roasting, rather than be taken
prisoners.

All this which I have related in detail passed in a very short
time, while the French commander, having seen enough in this hour,
detached sufficient forces to hold back and punish our too audacious
expedition. They beat the drum in Monte Torrero, and we saw a great
force of cavalry coming against us; but we who were with Renovales had
had our desire, the same as those with Butron, and were not obliged to
wait for those horsemen who arrived at the end of the action; so we
retired, giving them from a distance a "Good-day" of the most sharp and
pointed phrases in our vocabulary. We still had time to make useless
some pieces placed ready for employment on the following day. We took a
multitude of tools and spades, and we destroyed in all haste whatever
we could of their intrenchments without losing hold upon the dozens of
prisoners, of which we had taken up a collection.

Juan Pirli, one of our companions in the battalion, was carrying home
to Saragossa the steel helmet of an engineer for the admiration of the
public, and also a frying-pan in which were still the remnants of a
breakfast begun in camp before Saragossa and ended in the other world.

We had had nine killed and eight wounded in our battalion. When
Augustine rejoined me near the Carmen gate, I noticed that one of his
hands was stained with blood.

"Are you wounded?" I asked, examining the hand. "It is nothing more
than a scratch."

"It is a scratch," he replied; "but it was not made by ball, lance, nor
sabre, but by teeth, because when I gripped that Frenchman who lifted
up his pick to brain me, the damned fellow set his teeth into my hand
like a dog at bay."

When we entered the city, some by the Puerta del Carmen, some by the
Portillo, all the pieces of the redoubts and forts of Mediodia poured
a fire against the columns which were coming after us. The two sorties
combined had done damage enough to the French. In addition to losing
many men, a small part of their intrenchments had been made useless
to them, and we had possessed ourselves of a considerable number of
their tools. Besides this, the official engineers that Butron took with
him on that daring venture had had time to examine the works of the
besiegers, and measure them, and could give descriptions of them to the
commanding general.

The rampart wall was invaded by the people. They had heard within the
city the shooting of the skirmishes, and men and women, old people and
children had run out to see what glorious action was bulletined on the
plaza. We were received with exclamations of rejoicing, and from San
José all the way to the Trinitarios, the long line of men and women,
looking towards the battlefield, climbed upon the walls, and clapping
their hands at our arrival, waving their handkerchiefs, presented a
magnificent sight. After the cannon sounded, the redoubts together
poured a fire upon the field that we had just abandoned, and their
voices seemed a triumphal salvo, as it mingled with the huzzas and
shouts of joy.

In the surrounding houses, the windows and balconies were filled with
women, and the interest or curiosity of some of those in the streets
was such that they went into the hurrying crowd in numbers, and up to
the cannons, to congratulate the brave souls and soothe with kind words
their nerves, high strung with the noise of artillery, which is unlike
anything else in the world. It was necessary to command the multitude
to depart from the fortress at the Portillo. The crowd in the Santa
Engracia gave that place the aspect of a theatre, of a public festival.
The fire of the cannon ceased at last, having no more need to protect
our retreat, and the Castle Aljaferia alone sent an occasional shot
against the works of the enemy.

In reward for our action on that day it was granted us on the next to
wear a red ribbon on the breast by way of decoration; in justice to the
hazards of that sortie, Father Boggiero told us, among other things
uttered by the mouth of our general, "Yesterday you marked the last day
of the year with an action worthy of yourselves. At the sound of the
bugle your swords leaped from their scabbards and struck to the ground
haughty heads humbled by your valor and patriotism. Numantia! Olivenza!
I have now seen that your light horse will know how to preserve the
honor of this army and the enthusiasm of these sacred walls! Wear these
blood-stained swords that are the sign of your glory and the protection
of your country."




CHAPTER IX


From that day, as memorable in the second siege as Eras in the first
siege, began the great work in whose frenzy and exaltation both
besiegers and besieged lived for the next month and a half. The sorties
made during the first days of January were not of much importance. The
French, having finished their first parallel, advanced in a zig-zag
towards opening their second, and worked on it with so much activity
that very soon we saw our two best positions in the Mediodia, San José
and the redoubt del Pilar, threatened by siege batteries, every one
with a dozen cannon. I must be excused for saying that we did not cease
to make trouble for them, keeping up an incessant fire, and surprising
them with sudden skirmishes, but this was all. Junot, who now took the
place of Moncey, carried forward the work with great diligence.

Our battalion remained in the redoubt raised at the outer end of the
Huerva bridge. The radius of our fire was considerable, crossing that
of San José. The batteries of Los Martires, of the Botanical Garden,
and of the Torre del Pino further within the city were less important
than the two bodies holding the advanced positions, and served as
auxiliaries.

Numbers of Saragossan volunteers were with us in the garrison, some
of the soldiers of the guard, and various armed peasants who rather
elected themselves to our corps than came into it by our choice.
Eight cannons held the redoubt. Don Domingo Larripa was our leader.
The artillery was commanded by Don Francisco Betbezé. As chief of
engineers, we had the great Simono, high official of that distinguished
service, and a man of such quality that he was able to quote himself as
a model of all good military men, both in valor and in knowledge.

The redoubt was a work sufficiently strong for the purpose, and not
lacking in any material requisite for defending itself. Over the
entrance gate at the extremity of the bridge its constructors had
placed a tablet with this inscription,--

_The indestructible redoubt of our Lady of the Pillar. Saragossans! Die
for the Virgin del Pilar or conquer!_

We had our lodging within the redoubt, and though the place was not
altogether bad, we went on poorly enough. The rations were provided
by a committee recommended by the military administration; but this
committee, to our sorrow, was not able to attend to us properly. By
good fortune, and to the honor of that generous people, food was sent
to us from the neighboring houses, the best of their provisions; and we
were frequently visited by the charitable women, who since the battle
of the thirty-first had taken it upon themselves to nurse and care for
our poor wounded heroes.

I have not spoken of Pirli. Pirli was a boy from outside the city, a
rustic about twenty years of age, and in such jolly condition that the
most dangerous situations only moved him to a nervous and feverish joy.
I never saw him sad. He met the French singing; and when the bullets
whistled past his head, he capered about, making a thousand grotesque
gestures, throwing up his hands and fairly dancing. When the fire
was thick as hail, he called the bullets "hailstones." He called the
cannon-balls "hot cakes;" he called the hand-grenades, "señoras;" and
the powder he called "black flour," using other queer terms which I do
not now remember. Pirli, although not at all a serious person, was a
charming companion.

I do not know whether I have spoken of Tio Garces. He was a man of
forty-five years, a native of Garrapinillos, very brave, bronzed,
sawed-off looking, with limbs of steel; there was no one so active
or so imperturbable under fire. He was somewhat talkative, and was a
little inclined to be imprudent in his conversation, but with a certain
wit in his garrulity. He had a small estate in the environs, and a
very modest house; but he had levelled it with his own hands, and cut
down his pear-trees, so that the enemy could not use them. I heard of
a thousand of his valorous deeds in the first siege, and he wore a
decoration on his right sleeve, the embroidered shield of distinction
of the sixteenth of August. He dressed badly, and went almost
half-naked, not because he lacked clothing, but because he had not
time to put it on. He and others like him were without doubt those who
inspired the celebrated phrase of which I have already made mention:
"Their bodies were clothed only in glory." He slept without shelter,
and ate less than an anchorite; indeed with two pieces of bread and a
couple of bites of dried beef hard as hide, he had rations for the day.

He was a man somewhat given to meditation. When he saw the works of the
second parallel, he said, looking at the French: "Thanks be to God,
they are drawing near. Cuerno! Cuerno! these people are a trial to
one's patience!"

"What a hurry you are in, uncle Garces," we said to him.

"I should say so. I want to plant my trees again before winter is over.
And next month I want to build my little house again."

Truly Tio Garces should have worn a tablet on his brow like that on the
bridge, reading, "An unconquerable man."

But who comes there, advancing slowly along the valley of the Huerva,
leaning upon a thick stick and followed by a lively little dog which
barked at all the passers-by, merely for mischief, without any
intention of biting? It is the friar, Father Mateo del Busto, reader
and qualifier of the order of Saint Francis de Paula, chaplain of the
second company of Saragossa volunteers, an important man, who, in spite
of his age, was seen during the first siege in all places of danger,
succoring the wounded, helping the dying, carrying ammunition to the
well, and cheering all by his gentle accents. Entering the redoubt, he
showed us a large and heavy basket which he had toiled to bring here,
and in which was food better than that of our ordinary table.

"These cakes," said he, placing it on the ground, and taking out one by
one things which he named as he produced them, "have been given me in
the house of that most excellent lady, the Countess de Bureta, and this
in the house of Don Pedro Ric. Here you have a couple of slices of ham
from my convent, which was for Father Loshollos, whose stomach is not
strong, but he renounced this luxury and gave it to me to take to you.
See, how does this bottle of wine look to you? How much would those
foreign fellows yonder give for it?"

We all looked towards the plain. The little dog, leaping impudently
upon the wall, began to bark at the French lines.

"I have also brought you a couple of pounds of dried fruit which has
been kept in the dispensary at our house. We were going to preserve
them in liquor, but you taste them first of any one, my brave boys.
I have not forgotten thee at all, my beloved Pirli," he continued,
turning to the boy of that name; "and as you are half naked, and
without a cloak, I have brought you a magnificent covering. Do you see
this bundle? Well, here is an old gown that I have kept to give to a
poor man. Now, I present it to you as a covering for your body. It is
unsuitable clothing for a soldier; but if the gown does not make the
monk, neither does the uniform make the soldier. Put it on, and you
will be very comfortable in it."

The friar gave our friend his parcel, and Pirli put on the garment,
laughing and dancing about; and as he was still carrying on his head
the engineer's helmet which he had taken in the enemy's camp on the
thirty-first, he presented a figure stranger than can readily be
imagined.

A little later, several women also arrived with baskets of provisions.
The arrival of femininity swiftly transformed the aspect of the
redoubt. I do not know from where they produced a guitar; it is certain
that they produced one from somewhere. One of those present graciously
began to play the measures of that incomparable, divine, immortal
dance, the _jota_, and in a moment a great revelry of dancing was going
on.

Pirli, whose grotesque figure began in a French engineer and ended in
a Spanish friar, was the most carried away of any of the dancers, and
could not keep tune with his partner, a most graceful girl in Spanish
highland dress, who was called Manuela, whom I noticed the first moment
that I saw her. She was about twenty-two years of age, and was slender,
of a pure pale complexion. The excitement of the dance quickly flushed
her cheeks, and by degrees her movements grew more lively, unmindful of
fatigue. With her eyes half shut, her cheeks rosy, her arms moving to
the music of the sweet strains, she shook her skirts with lively grace;
taking her steps lightly, and presenting to us now her brow, and now
her shoulders, Manuela held us enchanted.

The ardor of the dancing crowd, the lively music, and the enthusiasm of
the rest of the dancers augmented her own, until at last, breathless
with fatigue, she dropped her arms and fell to earth like a stone or a
pomegranate.

Pirli stood over her, and surrounded her by a sort of corral formed of
himself and the basket of provisions.

"Let us see what you have brought us, Manuelilla," said Pirli. "If
'twere not for thee and Father Busto, we should die of hunger. And if
it were not for this little dance with which we get rid of the bad
taste of the 'hot cakes' and the 'señoras,' what would become of us
poor soldiers?"

"I bring you whatever there is," replied Manuela, opening the basket
of provisions. "Wait a little. If the siege lasts, you will be eating
bricks."

"We shall have bullets mixed with black flour," said Pirli.
"Manuelilla, have you got over being afraid of the bullets yet?" Saying
this, he seized his gun, and shot it off into the air. The girl gave a
sharp scream, and, startled, sprang up as if to escape.

"It is nothing, daughter," said the friar; "brave women are not afraid
of powder. On the contrary, they should take as much pleasure in it as
in the sound of castanets and mandolins."

"When I hear a ball," said Manuela, coming slowly and timidly back,
"there is not a drop of blood left in my veins."

At this moment the French, wishing to try the artillery of their
second parallel, shot off a cannon, and the ball came against the wall
of the redoubt, shattering the loose bricks into a thousand pieces.
Everybody rose to look at the enemy. The highland girl cried out in
terror; and Tio Garces was moved to scream through a loop-hole at the
French, heaping upon them the most insolent words, accompanied by many
exclamations. The little dog, running from one end of the place to the
other, barked furiously.

"Manuela, let us dance another jota to the sound of this music, and
viva the Virgin del Pilar," cried Pirli, jumping about like one out of
his senses.

Manuela rose on tiptoe, impelled by curiosity, and slowly stretched up
her head to look at the camp from the wall. Then, casting her glance
over the level plain, she seemed to dissipate, little by little, the
terrors of her fainting spirit; and at last we saw her surveying
the enemy's lines with a certain serenity, and even with a little
complacency.

"One, two, three cannon!" she said, counting the fiery mouths which
were discernible at that distance. "Come, little boys, don't be afraid.
This is nothing to you!"

Over near San José was heard the booming of guns, and on our redoubt
sounded the drum calling to arms. From the neighboring stronghold had
sallied forth a little column that exchanged distant shots with the
French workmen. Some of these, running to their left, placed themselves
within arm's length of our fire. We all ran to the walls, disposed
to send them a few hailstones, and without waiting orders, some of us
discharged our guns with loud huzzas.

All the women fled by the bridge towards the city except Manuela. Did
fear prevent her from moving? No. Her fear was great; she trembled, and
her teeth chattered; her face grew pale; but an irresistible curiosity
kept her in the redoubt. She fastened her gaze on the sharp-shooters,
and on the cannon that was about to be discharged.

"Manuela, are you not going?" said Augustine. "Doesn't it frighten you
to look at all that?"

The girl, with her attention fixed on the spectacle, terrified,
trembling, with white lips and palpitating bosom, neither moved nor
spoke.

"Manuelilla," said Pirli, running up to her, "take my gun and shoot it
off."

Contrary to what we expected, Manuelilla did not show any sign of
terror.

"Take it, please," cried Pirli, making her take the gun. "Put your
thumb here. Aim over yonder. Fire! Viva the second artillery woman!
Viva Manuela Sancho and the Virgin del Pilar!"

The girl took the gun, and, to judge by her actions, and the stupor of
her looks, it seemed as if she did not know what she was doing. But,
raising the gun with a trembling hand, she aimed at the field, pulled
the trigger, and fired.

A thousand fiery shouts of applause greeted the discharge, and the
girl left the gun. She was radiant with satisfaction, and her delight
deepened the roses in her cheeks.

"Do you see? You have already lost your fear?" said the priest. "There
is nothing more in these things than taking hold of them. All the
Saragossan women ought to do the same, and then Augustina Casta Alvarez
would not be the one glorious exception to her sex."

"Bring another gun," exclaimed the girl; "I wish to fire again."

"They have already marched off, if you please! Aren't you a good one!"
said Pirli, preparing to make an onslaught on the provision basket.
"To-morrow, if you like, you shall be invited for a few 'hot cakes.'
Well, let us make ourselves comfortable and eat."

The friar, calling his little dog, said to him: "That is enough, my
son; don't bark so, nor take it so much to heart that you make yourself
hoarse. Keep your boldness until to-morrow. To-day, we have no wish
to employ it, for if I am not mistaken they are hurrying away to get
behind their works."

In fact the skirmish at San José had concluded, and for the moment the
French were not in sight. A short time afterwards the sound of the
guitar was renewed, and the women returning, the sweet undulations of
the jota began again with Manuela Sancho and the great Pirli in the
first line.




CHAPTER X


When I woke at daybreak the next morning I saw Montoria, who was
passing by the wall.

"I believe that the bombardment is going to begin," he said to me;
"there is a great activity in the enemy's lines."

"They will try to demolish this redoubt," I said, getting up lazily.
"How gloomy the sky is, Augustine! Day dawns very sadly."

"I believe they will attack on all sides at once, until they have made
their second parallel. Do you know that Napoleon in Paris, knowing the
resistance shown by this city in the first siege, was furious with
Lefebre Desnouettes because he assaulted the plaza by the Portillo and
the Castle Aljaferia. He called for a plan of Saragossa, and they gave
it to him, and he showed that the city should be attacked by Santa
Engracia."

"By this place? A black day is indeed dawning for us if the orders of
Napoleon are carried out. Tell me, have we anything to eat here?"

"I did not show it to you before because I wished to surprise you," he
said to me, showing me a basket which served as the tomb of two cold
roast fowls, some comfits and fine preserves.

"You brought these last night? Indeed! How could you go out of the
redoubt?"

"I got leave from the general for an hour, and Mariquilla prepared this
feast. If Candiola knows that two of the hens from his chicken-corral
have been killed and roasted to regale two of the defenders of the
city, the devil will be to pay. Let us eat then, Señor Araceli, while
we await the bombardment. Here it comes. One bomb! Another, another!"

The right batteries opened fire upon San José and the Pilar, and what
a fire! The whole army seemed behind the cannon. Away with breakfasts,
away with the morning meal, away with tidbits!--the men of Aragon will
have no food but glory!

The unconquerable fortress answered the insolent besieger with a
tremendous cannonade, and soon the great soul of our fatherland moved
within us. The balls, beating upon the brick walls and the earthworks,
beat down the redoubt as if it were a toy pelted with stones by a
boy. The grenades, falling among us, burst with a great noise, and the
bombs, passing with awful majesty over our heads, went on to fall into
the streets and upon the roofs of the houses.

Everybody out! Let there be no idle or cowardly people in the city. The
men to the walls, the women to the bloody hospitals, the children and
priests to carry ammunition! Let no notice be taken of these dreadful
and burning things which bore through roofs, penetrate dwelling-houses,
open gates, pierce floors, descend to the cellars, and, bursting,
scatter the flames of hell upon the tranquil hearth, surprising with
death the aged invalid on his couch and the child in his cradle.
Nothing of this sort matters. Everybody out into the street, and thus
save honor though the city perish, and the churches and convents
and hospitals and the estates which are but earthly things! The
Saragossans, despising material good as they despised life, lived by
their spirits in the infinite spaces of the ideal.

In the first moments the Captain-General and many other distinguished
personages visited us,--such as Don Mariano Cereso the priest of Sas,
General O'Neill, San Genis, and Don Pedro Ric. There was also there the
brave and generous Don José Montoria, who embraced his son, saying to
him: "To-day is the day to conquer or to die. We will meet each other
in heaven."

Behind Montoria, Don Roque presented himself; he had become a brave
fellow, and as he had been employed in the sanitary service, he
began to show a feverish activity before there were any wounded, and
displayed to us a good sized pile of lint. Various friars mingled among
the combatants during the early firing, encouraging us with mystic
fervor.

At the same time, and with equal fury, the French attacked the redoubt
del Pilar and the fortress of San José. The latter, although more
formidable in aspect, had less power of resistance, perhaps because
it presented a broader target for the enemy's fires. But Renovales
was there with the Huesca and the Valencia volunteers, the Walloon
guards, and various members of the militia of Soria. The great lack of
the fortress was in its having been constructed for the protection of
a vast edifice, which the enemy's artillery converted into ruins in
a little while; pieces of the thick wall were forced in from time to
time, and many of its defenders were crushed. We were better off. Over
our heads we had only the heavens, and if no roof guarded us from the
bombs, neither did masses of masonry fall upon us. They demolished the
wall by the front and sides, and it was a pity to see how that fragile
mass fell away little by little, placing us in an exposed position.
Nevertheless, after four hours of incessant fire by powerful artillery,
they were not able to open a breach.

Thus passed the day of the tenth with no advantage for the besiegers
from us, even if they had succeeded in getting near San José and
opening a wide breach, which, together with the ruined condition of the
building, forced the unhappy necessity of its surrender. Yet, in the
mean time, the fortress had not been reduced to powder, and, dead or
alive, its defenders had hope. Fresh troops were sent there, because
the battalions working there since morning were decimated; and when
night fell, after the opening of the breach and the fruitless attempt
at an assault, yet Renovales held the blood-soaked ruins, among the
heaps of corpses, with only the third part of his artillery.

When night interrupted the firing, there had been great carnage on both
sides. We ourselves had lost many by death, and more were wounded.
The wounded were carried at the time into the city by the friars and
the women; but the dead still gave their last service with their cold
bodies, for they were stoically thrown into the open breach, which was
being stopped up with sacks of wool and earth.

During the night we did not rest for one single moment, and the dawn of
the eleventh found us inspired by the same frenzy, our pieces already
pointed against the enemy's intrenchments, and already piercing with
musket shots those who were coming to flank us, without hindering for
a moment the work of stopping up the breach, which was widening, hour
by hour its dreadful spaces. So we endured all the morning until the
moment when they began the assault upon San José, now converted into a
heap of ruins, and with most of its garrison dead. Centring the forces
upon these two points, they fell upon the convent, and directed an
audacious movement upon us; and it was with the object of making our
breach practicable that they advanced by the Torrero road with two
cannons protected by a column of infantry.

At that moment we thought ourselves lost. The feeble walls trembled,
and the bricks were shattered into thousands of pieces. We ran up to
the breach, which was widening every instant, where they poured upon
us a horrible fire. Seeing that the redoubt was being shattered to
pieces, they took courage to come to the very borders of the fosse
itself. It was madness to try to fill that terrible space, and to show
an uncovered place was to offer victims without number to the fury of
the enemy. We protected ourselves as well as we could with sacks of
wool and shovels of earth, and many stood as if petrified on the spot.
The firing of the cannon ceased because it seemed necessary; there was
a moment of indefinable panic; the guns fell from our hands; we saw
ourselves routed, destroyed, annihilated by that rain of fire that
seemed to fill the air. We forgot honor, the fatherland, the glory of
death, the Virgin del Pilar, whose name adorned the bridge and the
"unconquerable" defences. The most dreadful confusion reigned in our
ranks. Descending suddenly from the high moral level of our souls, all
those who had not fallen desired life of one accord, and, leaping over
the wounded and trampling the dead under foot, we fled towards the
bridge, abandoning that horrible sepulchre before it should shut us in,
entombing us all.

On the bridge we were swallowed up by insupportable terror and
disorder. There is nothing more frenzied than a coward. His abject
meannesses are as great as the sublimities of his valor.

Our leaders kept crying out to us, "Back, you rabble! The redoubt del
Pilar has not surrendered!" striking our swords with their sabres. We
turned back on the bridge, unable to go further, as reinforcements
came, and we stumbled over one another, the fury of our fear mingling
with the impetus of their bravery.

"Back, cowards!" cried our officers, striking us in the faces, "and die
in the breach!"

The redoubt was vacated. None but the dead and the wounded were there.
Suddenly we saw advance amid the dense smoke and the blackness of
powder, leaping over the lifeless bodies and the heaps of earth and
the ruins, and the guns we had thrown down, and the shattered works, a
figure, dauntless, pale, splendid, of tragic calmness. It was a woman
who had made her way forward and, penetrating the abandoned place, was
marching like a queen towards the horrible breach. Pirli, who was lying
on the ground, wounded in the leg, exclaimed in affright,

"Manuela Sancho, where are you going?"

All this passed in much less time than I take to tell it. After
Manuela Sancho, first one, then another, then many hurried, then all,
urged on by the leaders whose sabre-cuts had prodded us to the point
of duty. This portentous transformation came about by the impulse of
every man's heart obeying sentiments which all feel without any one's
knowing whence the mysterious force emanates. I do not know why we were
cowards, nor why we were brave a few moments later. What I do know
is that, moved by an extraordinary power, immense and superhuman, we
hurled ourselves into the breach behind the heroic woman, at the point
where the French were attempting the assault with ladders. Without in
the least knowing how to explain it, we felt our strength increased
a hundred-fold, and crushed them back, hurling into the ditch those
men of cotton who a little while ago had seemed to us men of steel.
With shots and sabre-cuts, with shells, with shovels full of earth,
by blows, and bayonet-thrusts, we fought. Many of our number died to
defend others with their dead bodies. We defended the breach, indeed,
and the French were obliged to retire, leaving many dead and wounded
at the bottom of the wall. The cannons again began firing, and the
unconquerable redoubt did not fall on the eleventh into the hands of
the French.

When the tempest of fire was calmed, we did not know ourselves. We were
transfigured, and something new and unknown palpitated in the depths
of our souls, giving us an unheard-of fierceness. The following day
Palafox said, with much eloquence: "Nor balls, nor bombs, nor shells
shall make our faces change color, nor can all France accomplish that!"




CHAPTER XI


The fortress of San José had surrendered, or rather the French had
entered it when their artillery had reduced it to powder, and all of
its defenders had fallen, one by one, to lie among its fragments. The
Imperial soldiers, on entering, found heaps of bodies and stones matted
together with blood. They could not establish themselves there because
they were flanked by the batteries of Los Martires and the Botanical
Garden, so they continued operations by mining, in order to possess
themselves of those two points. The fortifications which we held were
so nearly destroyed that a general agreement was urgent, and the
terrible orders, calling upon all the inhabitants of Saragossa to work
in renewing them. The proclamation said that every citizen should carry
a gun in one hand and spade in the other.

The twelfth and thirteenth were without rest, the fire diminishing a
little because the besiegers, warned by sad experience, did not wish
to risk any more hand-to-hand conflicts. Understanding that theirs was
a work of patience and skill, rather than of boldness and bravery,
they opened slowly, and with security, roads and mines which should
lead to the possession of the redoubt without loss of men. It was
almost necessary to build our walls anew, or rather to substitute sacks
of earth for them, an operation in which many friars, canons, civil
officials, children, and women were occupied. The artillery was almost
useless, the fosse about filled up, and it was necessary to continue
the defence at short range. And so we wore through the thirteenth,
protecting the works as we rebuilt them, suffering much, and seeing
ourselves constantly decreasing in numbers, although new men came to
take the places of the many that we lost. On the fourteenth the enemy's
artillery tried to demolish our new walls, opening breaches for us on
the front and at the sides. They did not dare to try a new assault,
contenting themselves with opening a mine in such a direction that
we could not in any way cover it with our fire, nor with that of any
battery near by.

Our valorous tantalizing earthworks would soon be covered by the
fires of the French batteries, which were hurling to the four winds
the earth of which they were formed. In this situation, surrender
was inevitable sooner or later. Indeed we were at the mercy of the
French arms as a ship at the mercy of the waves of the ocean. Flanked
by roads and zig-zags, through which a strong and clever enemy might
walk without danger, protected by all the resources of science, our
bulwarks of defence were like one man surrounded by an army. We had
no serviceable cannons, nor could we bring other new ones, because
the walls would not have borne them. Our only resource was to keep
watch of the redoubt in order to fly from it at the moment when the
French should enter and destroy the bridge, in order to prevent them
from following us. This was done; and on the night of the fourteenth
they worked without rest on the mine, and we placed small mines at the
bridge, hoping that the following day the enemy would try to mount by
that wall. But this did not happen. Not daring to make another assault
without all the precautions and security possible, they continued
their work of digging very nearly up to our fosse. In this labor our
indefatigable fusileers did them little damage. We were desperate, but
without power to do anything. Our desperation was of no avail; it was
a useless force, like the rage of a lunatic in his cage.

We drew out the nails from the tablet which proclaimed ours to be the
unconquerable redoubt, in order to take away with us that witness
of our justifiable arrogance. At nightfall the fortification was
abandoned, only forty remaining to keep it until the end, and shoot all
they could, as our captain said that no chance might be lost to lose
the enemy a couple of men. From the Torre del Pino we saw the retreat
of the forty at about eight o'clock in the evening, after they had met
the invaders with bayonet-thrusts; they retreated fighting bravely.

The interior mine of the redoubt had had little effect, but the small
mines of the bridge acquitted themselves so well that the passage was
destroyed and the redoubt isolated from the other bank of the Huerva.
Gaining this position and San José, the French would have enough
protection to open their third parallel and to demolish at their
leisure the whole circuit of the city. We were saddened and just a
little discouraged; but of what importance is a little depression when
on the day following one has a diversion and a feast? After being madly
discouraged, a little jollity does not come amiss, especially when
time is wanting to bury the dead; nor was there room in the houses for
the many who were wounded. It is true that there were hands for all
that had to be done, thanks be to God.

The reason for the general rejoicing was that glorious rumors were
in circulation of Spanish armies that were coming to succor us, on
the heels of the French, in many parts of the Peninsula. The people
crowded into the Plaza de la Seo, and in front of the Magdalene arch,
waiting until the "Gazette" should appear; and at last it came out,
cheering everybody's spirits, and making all hearts palpitate with
hope. I do not know if such rumors had really reached Saragossa, or if
they originated in the wits of the chief editor, Don Ignacio Assor.
It is certain that they told us in print that Reading was coming to
succor us with an army of sixty thousand men, that the Marquis of
Lazan, after routing the mob in the north of Catalonia, had entered
France, spreading terror in every direction, and that also the Duke
del Infantado was coming to our aid, who with Blake and la Romana had
routed Napoleon, slaying twenty thousand men, including Berthier, Ney,
and Savary, and that at Cadiz had arrived several millions in hard cash
sent by the English for the expense of war. What did it all mean?
Could the "Gazette" explain all this?

In spite of the size of these mouthfuls of rumor, we swallowed them;
and there were demonstrations of joy, ringing of church bells, running
through the streets, and singing the music of the jota, with many other
patriotic excesses, which at least had the advantage of affording
us a little of that cooling off of our mental temperature which was
necessary. Do not believe that in consideration of our joy the rain of
bombs had ceased! Very far from that! They seemed to jeer at the news
of our "Gazette," as they repeated their dose. Feeling a lively desire
to laugh at them to their faces, we went to the walls. The musicians of
the regiments played in a tantalizing fashion, and we all sang in an
immense chorus the famous words,--

  "The Virgin del Pilar says
  She wouldn't like to be a Frenchwoman!"

They were in a mood for answering jests, and in less than two hours a
greater number of projectiles were sent into the city than during all
the rest of the day. There was now no longer a secure refuge; there
was not a hand's breadth of ground or of roof free from that Satanic
fire. Families fled from their homes, or took refuge in the cellars.
The wounded, who were numerous in the principal houses, were carried
to the churches, seeking shelter in their strong vaults. Others went
dragging themselves along. Some more active ones carried their bedding
upon their shoulders. Most of them were accommodated in the Pilar;
and after the floor was all filled, they were stretched out upon the
altars and crowded into the chapels. In spite of their misfortunes,
they were consoled by looking at the Virgin, who seemed to say to them
unceasingly with her brilliant eyes that she would not care to be a
Frenchwoman!




CHAPTER XII


My battalion did not take part in the sorties of the days of the
twenty-second and twenty-fourth, nor in the defence of the Molino and
the positions situated at the back of San José, made glorious by the
destruction of many of our troops, where they had made the French
feel the strength of their hand. It was not because they had not been
careful to take precautions, for indeed from the mouth of Huerva to the
Carmen gate they stationed fifty cannon, most of them of heavy calibre,
directing them with great skill against our weakest points. In spite
of all this, we laughed, or pretended to laugh, at them, as in the
vain-glorious response of Palafox to Marshal Lannes (who had placed
himself since the twenty-second at the head of the besieging army), in
which he said to him, "The conquest of this city will be a great honor
to Monsieur the Marshal if he gains it in open fight, and not with
bombs and grenades, which only terrify cowards."

Of course, after a few days had passed, it was known that the hoped-for
forces and the powerful armies that were coming to free us were all
mists of our imaginations, and especially of that of the journalist who
invented them. There were no such armies of any sort roaming about to
help us.

I understood very soon that all that which was published in the
"Gazette" of the sixteenth was a canard, and so I said to Don José de
Montoria and his wife, who in their optimism attributed my incredulity
to a lack of public spirit. I had gone with Augustine and others of my
friends to the Montoria house to help them at a task that was wearying
them greatly. A part of their roof had been destroyed by the bombs,
and this threatened the walls with destruction also. They were trying
to remedy this with all possible speed. The eldest son of Montoria,
wounded in battle at the Molino, had been lodged with his wife and son
in the cellar of a house close by, and Doña Leocadia gave her hands and
feet no rest, going and coming between the two houses, carrying things
which were necessary.

"I can't let anything be done by others," she said to me; "that is
my nature. Although I have servants, I am not content unless I do
everything myself. How has my son Augustine borne himself?"

"Like what he is, señora, a brave boy," I answered; "and his talent for
war is so great that I should not be surprised to see him a general in
a couple of years."

"A general!" she exclaimed in surprise. "My son is going to chant
masses as soon as the siege is ended. Indeed you know we have educated
him for that. God and the Virgin del Pilar bring him in safety through
battle, that the rest of his days may go on in appointed ways! The
fathers at the Seminary have assured me that I shall see my son with
his mitre on his head and his crosier in his hand."

"It will be so, señora, I do not doubt it. But seeing how he manages
arms, I cannot bring myself to the thought that with the same hand with
which he pulls the trigger, he will also scatter benedictions."

"It is true, Señor de Araceli; and I have always said that the trigger
is not becoming to churchmen. But you see how it is. Here we have great
warriors,--Don Santiago Sas, Don Manuel Lasartesa; the incumbent of
San Pablo, Don Antonio La Casa; the parish priest of San Miguel, Don
José Martinez; and also Don Vicente Casanova, who is famous as the
first theologian of Saragossa. Indeed they all fight, my son also,
though I suppose he will be eager to return to the Seminary and plunge
into his studies. Would you believe it? Lately he was studying books
so large that they weighed two quintals. God's blessing be on the boy!
I am quite foolish over him when he recites some grand things all in
Latin. I suppose they are all about our Lord, and his love for his
church, because there is a great deal about _amorem_ and _formosa_ and
_pulcherrima_, _inflamavit_, and other words like those."

"Exactly," I replied, imagining that his recitations were from the
fourth book of a certain ecclesiastical work called the Æneid, written
by a certain Friar Virgil of the order of Predicadores.

"It must be as I say," said Doña Leocadia. "And now, Señor de Araceli,
let us see if you can help me move this table."

"With the greatest pleasure, dear lady. I will move it for you myself,"
I replied, taking charge of it at the moment that Don José de Montoria
entered, pouring out "porras" and "cuernos" from his blessed mouth.

"How is this, porra!" he cried; "men occupied in women's business? It
is not for moving tables and chairs that a gun has been placed in your
hands! And you, wife? How can you distract in this manner a man needed
on the other side? You and the children, porra! can you not move the
furniture? Are you made of paste or cheese? Look! In the street below
is the Countess de Bureta with a bed on her shoulders, and her two
maids carrying a wounded soldier on a cot."

"Very well," said Doña Leocadia, "there is no need of making such a
noise about it. The men may go. Everybody out into the street, and
leave us alone! Away with you, too, Augustine my son, and God preserve
you in the midst of this inferno."

"We must carry twenty sacks of flour from the Convent of Trinitarios to
the headquarters of supplies," said Montoria. "Come, let us all go."

And when we were in the street, he added, "The numbers of people
in Saragossa will soon make half rations necessary. It is true, my
friends, that there is much concealed provision, and although it has
been ordered that everybody declare what he has, many do not take
any notice of the order, and keep what they have to sell at fabulous
prices. It's a bad business. If I discover them, and they fall into my
hands, I will make them understand that Montoria is president of the
junta of supplies."

We had reached the parish church of San Pablo when we were met by
a friar, Father Mateo del Busto, who was coming with much fatigue,
forcing his feeble steps, and accompanied by another friar whom they
called Father Luengo.

"What news do your reverences bring us?" Montoria asked them.

"Don Juan Gallart has twenty pounds of inlaid work which he places at
the disposal of the committee."

"And Don Pedro Pizueta, the shop-keeper of the Calle de las Moscas,
generously offers sixty sacks of wool, and all the salt and wool of his
storehouses," added Luengo.

"But we have just been dealing with the miser Candiola," said the
friar; "a battle with which not even the Eras can compare."

"How is that?" asked Don José, with astonishment. "Has not that
wretched niggard understood that we will pay him for his flour? He
is the only citizen of Saragossa who has not given a penny for the
provisioning of the army."

"There is no use in preaching to Candiola," said Luengo. "He has said
decisively that we need not return there unless we bring him one
hundred and twenty-four reales for each sack of flour, and he has
seventy-eight of them in his storehouse."

"Is there any infamy equal to his!" exclaimed Montoria, letting loose a
string of porras, which I do not copy for fear of wearying my reader.
"What! A hundred and twenty-four reales are necessary to make that
stingy piece of flint understand the duties of a son of Saragossa in
times like these! The Captain-General has given me authority to take
whatever provisions are necessary, paying the fixed price for them."

"Do you hear what I tell you, Señor Don José?" said Busto; "Candiola
says that who wants flour must pay for it. He said that if the city is
not able to defend itself, it must surrender; that he has no obligation
to give anything for the war, because he was not the one who brought it
on."

"Let us go there," said Montoria, with anger, which showed itself in
his gestures, his altered voice, his darkened visage. "It is not the
first time that I have had that dog, that blood-sucker, in my hands."

I came behind with Augustine, who was pale and downcast. I wished to
speak with him, but he made signs to keep silence. We followed to see
how this would end. We found ourselves quickly in the Calle de Anton
Trillo; and Montoria said to us,--

"Boys, go on ahead and knock at the door of this insolent Jew. Force it
open, if no one opens it; enter, and tell him to come down to see me.
Take him by the ear, but be careful he does not bite you, for he is a
mad dog and a venomous serpent."

When we were walking on, I looked again at Augustine, and saw that he
was livid and trembling.

"Gabriel," he said, "I wish to run away. I wish that the earth would
open and swallow me. My father will kill me, but I cannot do what he
has commanded me."

"Come, lean on me; then act as if you had twisted your foot, and cannot
go on."

This was done, and our other companions and I began knocking at the
door. The old woman showed herself at the window, and greeted us with a
thousand insolent words. A few minutes passed, and then we saw a very
beautiful hand raise the curtain, permitting us to see for a moment a
face changed and pale, whose great dark eyes cast terrified glances
towards the street.

At that moment my companions and the boys who were following were
crying in hoarse concert,--

"Come down, uncle Candiola. Come down, dog of a Caiaphas!"

Contrary to our expectation, Candiola obeyed; but he did it believing
that he had to do with the mob of vagabond boys who were in the habit
of giving him such serenades, with no suspicion that the president of
the junta of supplies, and two others in authority, were there to talk
with him on a matter of importance. He soon had occasion to know that
this was a serious matter, for at the opening of the door, as he came
running out with a cudgel in his hand, and his ugly eyes glowing with
wrath, he came face to face with Montoria, and drew back in alarm.

"Ah, it is you, Señor de Montoria," he said, with very bad grace. "How
is it that you, being a member of the committee of public safety, have
not been able to disperse this rabble which has come to make this noise
before the gate of the house of an honorable citizen?"

"I am not a member of the committee of public safety, but of the junta
of supplies, so I come in search of the Señor Candiola, and make him
come down; but I will not enter this dark house full of cobwebs and
mice."

"The poor cannot live in palaces like Señor José de Montoria,
administrator of the goods of the commune, and for a long time
tax-collector," replied Candiola.

"I made my fortune by work, not by usury," exclaimed Montoria. "But let
us make an end of this. Señor Don Jeronimo, I have come for that flour.
These two good fathers have acquainted you with our need of it already."

"Yes, I will sell it, I will sell it," answered Candiola, with a crafty
smile; "but I cannot part with it at the price which these señors
indicated. It is too little. I do not part with it for less than one
hundred and sixty-two reales for a sack of a hundred pounds."

"I do not ask _your_ price," said Don José, restraining his indignation.

"The junta may dispose as it likes with its own; but in my house no one
sells anything but myself," answered the miser. "And that is all there
is to say. Each one may do in his own house as I do in mine."

"Come, look here, you blood-sucker!" exclaimed Montoria, catching him
by the arm, making him jump, "look here, Candiola of a thousand devils,
I have said that I have come for the flour, and I will not go without
it! The army of defence of Saragossa must not die of hunger, porra! and
all citizens must contribute to maintain it."

"To maintain it! to maintain the army!" cried the miser, venomously.
"Perhaps I am the author of its being?"

"Miserable pig, is there not in your black and empty soul one spark of
patriotism?"

"I do not maintain vagabonds. What need was there that the French
should bombard us and destroy the city? You want me to feed the
soldiers. I will give them poison."

"Wretch, worm, blood-sucker of Saragossa, disgrace of the Spanish
people!" exclaimed my protector, threatening with his doubled fist
the miser's wrinkled face. "I would rather be damned to hell forever
than to be what you are, to be Candiola for one minute. You black
conscience, you perverse soul, are you not ashamed of being the only
one in this city who has refused all his resources to the patriotic
army of his country? Does not everybody's hatred of you for this vile
conduct weigh upon you more heavily than if all the rocks of Moncayo
had fallen upon you?"

"Stop your music and leave me in peace," said Don Jeronimo, starting to
the door.

"Look here, you unclean reptile," cried Montoria, detaining him, "I
have told you that I am not going without the flour. If you do not
produce it with good grace, as every good Spaniard does, you shall
be made to give it by force. I will pay you forty-eight reales per
sack,--its price before the siege."

"Forty-eight reales," exclaimed Candiola, with an expression of rancor,
"I will sell my skin at that price before the flour. I would pay more
than that for it. The accursed mob! Shall they be supported by me,
Señor de Montoria?"

"You may thank them, miserable usurer, because they have not put an
end to your useless life. Does not the generosity of this people
surprise you? In the other siege, while we were enduring the greatest
privations in order to get money together, your heart of stone remained
insensible, and they could not pull out of you one old shirt to cover
the nakedness of a poor soldier, or one piece of bread to appease his
hunger. Saragossa has not forgotten your infamies. Do you not remember
that after the battle of the fourth of August, when the wounded were
distributed throughout the city, and two were assigned to you, and rang
at your door, it was not possible for them to get their shadows into
this wretched door? On the night of the fourth they arrived at your
door, and with their weak hands they rang for you to open to them; but
their moans and suffering did not move your heart of brass. You came to
the door, and kicked them into the street, saying that your house was
not a hospital. Unworthy son of Saragossa! but you have not the soul of
a son of Saragossa. You were born a Mallorcan, of the blood of a Jew!"

The eyes of Candiola shot fire. His jaw quivered, and his fingers
closed convulsively upon the cudgel in his right hand.

"Yes, you have the blood of a Mallorcan Jew. You are no son of this
noble city. Do not the moans of those poor wounded men sound in your
bat's ears? One of them, who was bleeding badly, died on this spot
where we are standing. The other managed to creep to the market, where
he told of what had happened. Infamous scarecrow! Do you suppose that
the people of Saragossa are going to forget the morning of the fifth?
Candiola, Candiolilla, give me that flour, and we will close this
transaction in peace."

"Montoria, Montorilla," replied the other, "my ground and my work
will not go to fatten idle vagabonds. Ya! Talk to me of charity and
generosity and the needs of the poor soldiers! I have heard enough
talk about those wretched sponges who are fed at the public cost. The
committee of supplies will have no chance to laugh at me. As if we did
not understand all this music about 'succor of the army.' Montoria,
Montorilla, you have a little dough in your own house, isn't that true?
Good dough can be found in the ovens of every patriot, made of the
flour given by the foolish blockheads that the committee of supplies
knows. Forty-eight reales! A pretty price! Then, in the accounts which
will go to the Captain-General it will be set down as if bought at
sixty reales, with a snapper of 'The Virgin del Pilar would not like to
be a Frenchwoman.'"

When he said this, Don José de Montoria, who was already choking with
wrath, lost his stirrups, as the saying is, and powerless to contain
his indignation, went straight up to Candiola, apparently to slap
his face; but the other had with one strategic glance foreseen the
movement, and prepared to repel it. Quickly taking the offensive, he
threw himself with a catlike spring upon my protector, grasping his
neck with both hands and fastening upon him with his strong and bony
fingers, at the same time making ready with his teeth, as if he were
about to take between them the entire person of his enemy.

There was a brief struggle in which Montoria strove to free himself
from those feline claws which had so suddenly made him their captive;
but it could be seen in an instant that the nervous strength of the
miser could not hold against the muscular strength of the Aragonese
patriot. He shook him off violently. Candiola fell to the ground like a
dead man.

We heard the cry of a woman from an upper window, and then the snap
of a window-shutter closing. In this dramatic moment I wheeled about
anxiously towards Augustine, but he had disappeared.

Don José de Montoria, mad with rage, kicked angrily at the prostrate
body, stammering thickly in his wrath.

"You dirty pick-pocket, enriched with the blood of the poor, you dare
to call me a thief, to call the members of the committee of supplies
thieves! By a thousand porras! I will teach you to respect honest
people, and you may be thankful that I do not tear out that miserable
tongue of yours and throw it to the dogs."

All this struck us fairly dumb; but presently we snatched the unlucky
Candiola from under the feet of his enemy. His first movement was made
as if to jump upon him again, but Montoria had gone into the house,
calling:

"Come, boys, we will go into the storehouse and get the flour. Quickly,
let us make haste, quickly!"

The great number of people who had congregated in the street prevented
old Candiola from entering his own house. The gamins, who had come
running from all over the neighborhood, took charge of him themselves.
Some pulled him forward, others pushed him backward, tearing his
clothing to shreds. Others, taking the offensive from afar, threw great
chunks of street mud at him. In the mean time a woman came to meet
those of us who had entered the lower floor where the storerooms were.
At the first glance I recognized the beautiful Mariquilla, altered and
trembling, wavering at every step, without power to stand erect or
speak, paralyzed with terror. Her fear was so great that we all pitied
her, even Montoria.

"You are the daughter of Señor Candiola," he said, drawing from his
pocket a handful of money, and making a brief reckoning on the wall
with a bit of charcoal which he picked up from the floor. "Sixty-eight
sacks of flour at forty-eight reales is three thousand two hundred and
sixty-four. They are not worth half that, for they seem to me decidedly
musty. Take it, child, here is the exact amount."

Mariquilla Candiola made no movement whatever towards taking the money,
and Montoria put it down upon a box, saying,--

"There it is!"

Then the girl with a brusque and energetic movement which seemed, as it
certainly was, the inspiration of her offended dignity, took the money,
gold, silver, and copper, and threw it as if it were so many stones
into the face of Montoria. The money was scattered all over the floor,
and rolled out of the door without much promise of any one's finding it
all in the future. Immediately afterwards the señorita went without a
word into the street. She beheld her father jammed into the crowd; and
presently, aided by some young men, unable to see with indifference a
woman in distress, she freed him from the infamous captivity in which
the boys held him.

The father and daughter entered by the garden gate, as we were
beginning to remove the flour.




CHAPTER XIII


When we had finished carrying out the flour, I went and looked for
Augustine; but I could find him nowhere, neither in his father's
house, nor at the headquarters of supplies, nor in the Coso, nor in
Santa Engracia. At nightfall I found him in the powder mill near San
Juan de los Panetes. I have forgotten to say that the Saragossans had
improvised a work shop where were turned out daily nine or ten quintals
of powder. I saw Augustine helping the workmen put into sacks and
barrels the powder made during the day. He was working with feverish
activity.

"Do you see this enormous heap of powder?" he said to me when I
approached him. "Do you see those sacks and those barrels all full of
the same material? Well, Gabriel, it seems to me very little."

"I don't know what you are trying to say."

"I say that if this immense quantity of powder were as big as Saragossa
I should like it still better. Yes, and in such a case I should like
to be the only inhabitant of this great city. What a pleasure! Listen,
Gabriel! If it were so, I would myself set fire to it, and fly into the
clouds, torn to pieces in the horrible explosion like pieces of rock
which a volcano throws to a distance of a hundred leagues. I would be
hurled to the fifth heaven, and of my members, scattered everywhere,
there would be no memory! Death, Gabriel, death is what I desire! But I
desire a death--I do not explain it to you. My desperation is so great
that to die of a gunshot or a sabre-thrust would not satisfy me. I long
to be rent asunder, and diffused through space in a thousand burning
particles. I pant to feel myself in the bosom of a flame-bearing cloud.
My spirit yearns, if only for an infinitesimal instant, the delight of
seeing this wretched body reduced to powder. Gabriel, I am desperate.
Do you see this powder? Imagine within my breast all the flames which
this could make. Did you see her when she went out to get her father?
Did you see her when she threw the money? I was in a corner where I
could see it all. Mariquilla does not know that that man who maltreated
her father is my own! Did you see how the boys threw mud at poor
Candiola? I realize that Candiola is a wretch. But she, what fault has
she? She and I, what fault have we? None, Gabriel. My heart is broken,
and thirsts for a thousand deaths. I cannot live. I will run into the
place of greatest danger and fling myself into the fire of the French.
After what I have seen to-day, I and the earth on which I dwell may not
be together."

I drew him away from the place, taking him to the walls; and we went to
work on the fortifications which were being made in Las Tenerias, the
weakest point in the city since the destruction of San José and Santa
Engracia. I have already said that from the mouth of the Huerva to San
José stretched a line of fifty mouths of fire. Against this formidable
line of attack what avail was our fortified circuit?

The quarter of Las Tenerias extended from the eastern part of the city,
between the Huerva and the old part of the town, perfectly outlined yet
by the wide road which is called the Coso. It was at the beginning of
this century a village of mean houses, almost all inhabited by laborers
and artisans, and the religious houses there had none of the splendor
of the monuments of Saragossa. The general plan of this district is
approximately the segment of a circle whose arc curves out to the open
country, and whose chord unites it to the city, from the Puerta Quemada
to the rise at the Sepulcro.

From that line to the circumference ran several streets, some of them
broken, like the Calles de la Diezma, Barrio Verde, de los Clavos,
and de Pabostre. Some of these were marked not by rows of houses, but
by walls, and lacking sometimes one thing and sometimes another. The
streets spread out into formless little squares or yards or barren
gardens. I describe badly because in the days I refer to the heaps of
ruins left by the first siege had been used to mount batteries and
raise barricades in points where the houses did not offer a natural
defence.

Near the fortification of the Ebro were some remnants of an ancient
wall, with various little towers of masonry which some persons supposed
to be from the hands of the Romans, and others judged to be the work of
the Moors. In my time--I do not know how it may be now--these pieces of
wall seemed to be mortised into the houses, or rather the houses were
mortised into them, appearing like props and corners of that ancient
work, blackened but not crumbled by the passing of so many centuries.
The new had been built in a confused way upon the ruins of the old,
as the Spanish people had developed and grown upon the spoils of other
peoples of mixed bloods, until they became as they are to-day.

The general aspect of the district of Las Tenerias brought to the
imagination pleasant fancies of all that had taken place during Moorish
rule, the abundance of brick, the long gable ends, the irregular
fronts, the window lattices with shutters, the complete architectural
anarchy, making it impossible to know where one house ended and another
began, or of distinguishing whether this had two floors or three, or
if that roof served to support the walls of that one over there. The
streets at best ended in yards with no ways out. The archways, which
gave entrance to a little square, reminded me that here was a vista
upon another Spanish people, very different from those now here.

This amalgamation of houses which I have described to you, this suburb
built up by many generations of laborers and peasants and tanners,
according to the caprice of each, without order or harmony, had
prepared itself for the defence on the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth
days of January, at the time when the French began to display their
pomp of attack by placing forces on that side. All the families
living in the houses of this suburb proceeded to build works according
to their own strategic instincts. There were military engineers in
petticoats who demonstrated a profound knowledge of war by walling up
certain spaces and opening others to the light, and for purposes of
firing. The walls of the eastern side were spiked along their length.
The turrets of the wall of Cæsar Augustus, built to resist arrows and
sling stones, now upheld cannon.

If any one of these pieces were turned upon one of the neighboring
roofs, the roof or the entire house, whatever was there, would be
immediately blown to pieces. Many passages had been obstructed, and
two of the religious edifices of the suburb, San Augustine and Las
Monicas, were veritable fortresses. The wall had been rebuilt and
strengthened; the batteries had been joined together, and our engineers
had calculated the positions and the reach of the enemy's guns very
well, in order to accommodate our defences to them.

Our line had two advanced points, the mill of Goicoechea and a house
which, because it belonged to a certain Don Victoriano Gonzalez, has
gone into history by the name of the Casa de Gonzalez. This line,
running from the Puerta Quemada, met first the battery of Palafox, then
the Molino, the mill, in the city, then the garden of San Augustine;
it continued to the mill of Goicoechea, situated a little out of the
district, then to the orchard of Las Monicas, and on to those of San
Augustine; further up, a great battery and the house of Gonzalez.
This is all that I remember of Las Tenerias. There was over there a
place called the Sepulcro, because of its nearness to a church of
that name. More than one portion of the suburb, indeed, deserved the
name of sepulchre. I tell you no more in order not to tire you with
these descriptive minutiæ, unnecessary to one who knows those glorious
places, and insufficient for one who has been unable to visit them.




CHAPTER XIV


Augustine Montoria and I stood guard with our battalion in the Molino
until after nightfall, the hour when we were relieved by the Huesca
volunteers; then we permitted ourselves to be all night outside the
lines. But it must not be believed that during these hours we strolled
about hand in hand; for when our military services were over, there
were others no less onerous in the interior of the city, where the
wounded had already been carried to La Seo and to the Pilar,--burning
houses to carry things out of, or materials to carry to the friars, the
canons, and the civil officials, who were making cartridges in San Juan
de los Panetes.

Montoria and I went there by way of the Calle de Pabostre. I walked
along munching a crust of bread with good appetite. My companion,
taciturn and gloomy, amused himself by throwing his to the dogs that we
met as we walked along. Although I exerted my imagination in efforts
to cheer his sad spirit, he remained dull and insensible to it all,
replying but sadly to my merry chatter. As we entered the Coso, he said
to me,--

"It is ten by the clock of the Torre Nueva. Do you know--I wish to go
there to-night."

"To-night you will not be able to go. Try to stifle the flame of love
in its ashes, while we are threatened by those other burning hearts,
the flaming bombs which are coming to break in the houses and among the
people."

It was even so. The bombarding, which had not ceased during all the
day, was continued during the night, though with a little less vigor;
and from time to time projectiles fell, augmenting the already large
number of victims within the city.

"I must go there this night," he said. "Did not Mariquilla see me among
all those who crowded in front of the door of her house? Will she not
think me one of those who abused her father?"

"I don't believe so. That young woman would know how to distinguish
between individuals. She has already made inquiries, and now is no time
for stolen sweets. Do you see? From that house coming this way are some
poor women in need of help. Look, one of them is not able to creep
further, and falls to the ground. Is it not possible that the Señorita
Doña Mariquilla Candiola has also gone to care for the wounded at San
Pablo or the Pilar?"

"I do not believe so."

"Or perhaps where they are making cartridges?"

"I believe that still less. She would be in her house, and there is
where I wish to go, Gabriel. You may go and see to the carrying of
the wounded, or to the powder, or whatever you please, but I am going
there!"

As he said this, Pirli presented himself to us in his friar's habit,
already torn and hanging in a thousand fragments, and on his head the
French engineer's helmet, badly battered, but plated and plumed, and
making our hero look less like a soldier than a carnival figure.

"Are you coming to help carry the wounded?" he asked. "They have just
killed two more for us that we are carrying to San Pablo. They need men
there to open the ditch where they are burying our dead of yesterday,
but I have worked enough. I am going to the house of Manuela Sancho to
see if I can get a snatch of sleep. But, first, we are going to dance a
little. Don't you want to come along?"

"No, we are going to San Pablo," I replied, "to bury the dead. There is
enough to do."

"They say that so many dead make the air bad, and that is why there
are so many ill of the fever. That is finishing them faster than their
wounds, over by the other barricade. I would rather have some 'hot
cakes' than the epidemic. A 'señora' wouldn't scare me, but a chill and
a fever would. So then you are going to bury the dead?"

"Yes," said Augustine, "let us bury the dead."

"In San Pablo there are no less than forty wounded," answered Pirli;
"and, at the rate we're going there, we'll soon be more dead than
living. Don't you want a little diversion? If you are not going to
work on the ditch, why not come along to the cartridge factory? All
the girls will be there, and from time to time they will give us some
singing, or cheer our souls with a little dancing."

"We have no fault to find with all that. Will Manuela Sancho be there
too?"

"No, the girls there are the young ladies of Saragossa, the señoritas
who have been called into service by the committee of safety. There are
a great many of them in the hospitals too. They invite themselves for
that service. And it would be a queer one who would use her eyes so
little as not to make a match for herself, if not for this year, then
for next!"

We heard the rushing sound of many footsteps behind us, and, turning,
we saw a great number of people, among whose voices we recognized that
of Don José de Montoria. He was very angry at seeing us there, and
exclaimed,--

"What are you doing here, idiots? Three strong hearty men standing here
with their hands folded, when there is such a lack of men for the work
to be done! Go along with you! Clear out of here! March, you little
tin soldiers! Do you see those two posts there on the Trenque knoll
with beams crossed on top from which six ropes are hanging? Do you see
that gallows set up in that place for traitors? Well, it's for loafers,
too. Get along to work, or I'll show your carcasses how to move with my
fists."

We followed him until we came quite near the gallows, where the six
ropes were swaying commandingly in the wind, ready to strangle traitors
or cowards. Montoria seized his son by the arm, and pointed to the
horrible apparatus with an energetic gesture, saying,--

"Here you can see what we have been getting ready this evening. Look!
There's where those who do not do their duty will be entertained. On
with you! I who am old never get tired, but you young healthy men act
as if you were made of putty. The invincible men of the first siege
have almost all worked themselves to death; and we old men, sirs, are
obliged to set an example to these dandies who if they miss dining for
a week begin to complain and beg for broth. I would give you broth of
powder, and soup of cannon balls, you cowards! Go, and see that you
help to bury the dead and carry ammunition to the walls."

"And assist at the hell which this damned epidemic is spreading," said
one of those who had accompanied Montoria.

"I don't know what to think of this thing which the doctors call the
epidemic," answered Don José. "I call it fear, sirs, pure fear. They
take a chill; then they have spasms and a fever; then they turn green,
and they die. What is all that but the effect of fear? Our strong men
all seem to be gone, yes, señors. Ah, what men those were in the first
siege! Now when the soldiers have been firing and been fired at for
a trifle of ten hours, they begin to fall down with fatigue, and say
they can do no more. There's one man who had lost only a leg and a
half who began screaming and calling upon all the holy martyrs, begging
that they put him to bed. Nothing but cowardice, pure cowardice! To-day
several soldiers left Palafox's battery who had a good sound arm apiece
left to fight with. And they began to beg for broth! They had better
drink their own blood, which is the best broth in the world. I say the
race of men of courage is finished and done with, porra! a thousand
porras!"

"To-morrow the French will attack Las Tenerias," said the other. "If,
as a result, there are many wounded, I don't see where we are going to
put them."

"Wounded!" exclaimed Montoria. "We don't wish to see any wounded
here. The dead do not hinder us. We can pile them up in a heap; but
the wounded--ugh! Our soldiers are no longer fearless, and I'll wager
that those who are defending the best positions will not risk seeing
themselves decimated; they will abandon them as soon as they see a
couple of dozen French heads above each rampart. What feebleness! After
all, 'twill be as God wills, and as for the wounded and sick, we will
take care of them. Why not? Have you taken many fowls to-day?"

"Several dozens, of which more than half were given, and for the rest
we paid six reales and a half. A few were not willing to give."

"All right. To think that a man like me should occupy himself with
fowls in days like these! What's that you say? Some were not willing
to give? The Captain-General authorized me to impose fines upon those
who do not contribute to the defence. We will just gently get the law
on those milksops and traitors. Hark, señors! A bomb fell then in the
neighborhood of the Torre Nueva. Did you see it? Did you hear it? What
a horrible explosion! I'll wager that it is Divine Providence more
than the French batteries that have sent it against the house of that
petrified, soulless Jew who looks on with indifference and contempt at
his neighbors' distress. People are running that way. It seems that the
house is on fire, or falling down. No, don't you run, you miserable
fellows. Let it burn, let it fall to the earth in a thousand pieces. It
is the house of the miser Candiola, who would not give one peseta to
save the whole human race from a new deluge. Eh, where are you going?
You are going to run there too? No, come along. Follow me! We can be of
more use elsewhere."

We were going in a crowd to the Orphanage. Augustine, impelled no doubt
by the beating of his heart, suddenly started as if to direct his steps
towards the Plazuela San Felipe, following the great crowd hastening
towards that place. But detained forcibly by his father he continued,
though with bad grace, in our company. Something was certainly burning
near the Torre Nueva, and on the tower the precious arabesques and
bricks shone redly, because of the nearness of the fire. That graceful
leaning column could be distinguished, crimson in the black night, and
at the same time from its huge belfry a great lamentation fell upon the
air.

We reached San Pablo.

"Go on, boys, loungers! Help those who are opening the ditch. It must
be wide and deep. It is a garment wherein they will enrobe forty
bodies."

We began upon the work, digging earth from the ditch which was being
opened in the court of the church. Augustine was digging with me, but
at every instant he turned his eyes in the direction of the Torre Nueva.

"It is a terrible fire. It seems as if it is going down a little,
Gabriel. I long to throw myself into this grave which we are opening."

"Don't be in a hurry," I answered him. "Perhaps to-morrow will throw us
into it without our asking. This is no time for foolishness; it is time
to work."

"Do you not see? I believe that the fire is extinguished."

"Yes, the whole house has probably burned down. Candiola was sure to be
shut up in his cellar with his money, and the fire couldn't reach him.
Don't worry."

"Gabriel, I must go there, if only for a moment. I wish to see if the
fire was really in his house. If my father returns, tell him that I
will be back in a second."

The sudden appearance of Don José de Montoria prevented Augustine
making the flight which he had just planned, and we two continued
digging in the great sepulchre. They began to bring out bodies; and
the sick and wounded, who were constantly being brought from without,
saw, as they were taken into the church, the wide bed which we were
preparing for them. At last the ditch was sufficiently deep, and we
were ordered to cease digging. The work went on, and corpses were
brought, one by one, and cast into the great sepulchre, while clergymen
and pious women upon their knees repeated the mournful words of the
service. There was room enough for all, and nothing remained to be
done for them but to cover them with earth. Don José Montoria, with
head uncovered, reciting in a low voice a paternoster, threw the first
handful. Then our shovels and spades began with all speed to cover
them. Our work ended, we all knelt down, and prayed in hushed tones.
Augustine Montoria said to me when this was done,--

"We will go now. My father will march himself off. Go and tell him
that we are going to relieve two friends on duty who have a sick one
in their family and wish us to see him. Tell him, for God's sake! I
haven't the courage, then in an instant we can be there."




CHAPTER XV


We deceived the old man and went. The night was now far advanced, as
the interment which I have just described had lasted more than three
hours. The light of the fire could no longer be seen. The mass of the
tower was lost in the darkness of night, and its great bell did not
sound except now and then to announce the coming of a bomb. We arrived
soon at the Plazuela of San Felipe. Seeing the roof of a house near the
church still smoking, we knew that it was this, and not the house of
Candiola, which three hours before the flames had attacked.

"God has preserved it!" cried Augustine, joyously. "If the meanness of
her father should bring divine anger upon that roof, the virtues and
innocence of Mariquilla would preserve it! Let us go there."

In the Plazuela of San Felipe there were a few people, but the Calle de
Anton Trillo was deserted. We stopped close to the wall of the garden
and listened attentively. All was in such deep silence that the house
seemed abandoned. Could it really be abandoned? Although this quarter
was one of those least damaged by the bombardment, many families had
left it, or were living as refugees in their own cellars.

"If I go in," said Augustine to me, "you must come in with me. After
the scene of to-day, I am afraid that Don Jeronimo, suspicious and
cowardly, like a good miser, will be up all night and about his garden,
lest they return and carry off his whole place."

"In that case it is better not to go in," I answered, "because besides
the danger of falling into the hands of that old scoundrel, there would
be a great scandal, and all Saragossa will know that the son of Don
José Montoria, the young man destined for a bishop's mitre, goes by
night to see the daughter of the goodman Candiola."

But this and all that I could say to him was like preaching in the
desert. Without listening to reason, and insisting that I should
follow him, he made the signal of love, waiting and watching with
great anxiety for the reply. Some time passed, and at last, after long
looking and looking again from the pavement in front, we saw a light in
a high window. We heard the fastening of the gate drawn back softly,
and it was opened without creaking. Love had taken precautions, and the
ancient hinges had been oiled. We two entered meeting, unexpectedly,
not a perfumed and fascinating damsel, but a vinegary countenance which
I recognized at once as that of Doña Guedita.

"He lets hours pass before he comes, and then he comes with another,"
she grumbled. "Young men, be so kind as to make no noise. Walk on
tip-toe, and be careful not to stumble over even a dried leaf, because
Señor Candiola seems to me to be very wide awake."

This she said to us in a voice so low that we heard with difficulty;
then she went on before, making signs that we should follow her,
putting her finger to her lips to enjoin absolute silence. The garden
was small. We soon crossed it, and came to the stone staircase which
led up to the doorway of the house. Here there came to meet us a
shapely figure wrapped in a mantle, or cloak. It was Mariquilla! Her
first gesture was to impose silence, indicating with anxiety, as I saw,
a window which opened upon the garden. She then showed surprise that
Augustine had not come unaccompanied. But he knew how to soothe her,
saying, "It is Gabriel, my best, my only friend, of whom I have spoken
so many times."

"Speak lower," whispered Mariquilla; "my father went out of his room a
little while ago with a lantern, and made the rounds of the house and
the garden. I doubt if he is asleep yet. The night is dark. Let us hide
in the shadow of the cypress, and talk in a very low voice."

The stone stairway led up to a kind of balcony with a wooden railing.
The great cypress in the garden cast a deep shadow at the end of the
balcony, forming there a refuge against the clear light of the moon.
The bare boughs of an elm spread above the other end of the balcony,
casting a thousand fantastic shadows upon the floor, upon the walls
of the house, and upon ourselves. In the protection of the cypress,
Mariquilla seated herself upon the only seat that was there, and
Montoria threw himself upon the floor beside her, resting his hands
upon her knees. I seated myself also upon the floor not far from the
pair. It was a January night, still, dry, and cold. Perhaps the two
lovers with hearts aflame did not feel the low temperature; but I,
a creature stranger to their fires, wrapped myself in my cloak to
keep myself from the chill of the tiles. Guedita had disappeared.
Mariquilla led the conversation, plunging at once into the difficulty.

"I saw you in the street this morning. When Guedita and I heard the
noise of the people crowding about our gate, I went to the window, and
I saw you on the sidewalk in front."

"It is true, I was there," replied Montoria, with emotion, "but I was
obliged to go at once. I couldn't stand it."

"Didn't you see how those barbarians were trampling my father
underfoot? When that cruel man struck him, I looked everywhere, hoping
that you would come forward in his defence. But I did not see you
anywhere."

"I tell you, Mariquilla of my heart," said Augustine, "that I was
obliged to go. After they told me that your father had been so
ill-treated, I came as soon as I could get a chance."

"A pretty time to come! Among so many, so many people," said
Mariquilla, weeping, "not one lifted a hand to help him. I nearly died
of fright, seeing him in such danger. I looked anxiously into the
street, and there was no one but enemies, no one; not one kind hand or
voice among all those men! One of them, more cruel than all, knocked
my father down. Oh, oh, remembering this, I scarcely know what happened
next! When I saw it, my fright paralyzed me for a few moments. Until
then I never knew what violent anger was, how a sudden impulse, an
inward fire, could drive me on. I came to him. My poor father was lying
on the ground, and the wretch was trampling upon him as if he were a
venomous reptile. When I saw that, I felt my blood boil in my veins. As
I have told you, I ran about the house, looking for a weapon, a knife,
an axe, anything. When I heard the cries of my father, I flew down.
Finding myself among so many men, I felt a strange, uncontrollable
timidity, and could not stir a step. The same man who had kicked him
handed me a fistful of gold. I did not want to take it, but I did; then
I threw all the coins into his face, with all my strength. My hand was
as if filled with thunderbolts, and I felt as if I were avenging my
father, hurling them at that villain. I went out afterwards, looking
everywhere for you; but I could not see you. I found my father alone in
that inhuman crowd, down in the mud, begging for mercy."

"Oh, Mariquilla, Mariquilla of my heart!" cried Augustine in anguish,
kissing the hands of the unhappy daughter of the miser. "Don't talk
any more about all that. You tear my soul in two! I could not defend
him. I--I had to go. I believed the crowd was after something--else.
You are right. But let us talk no more of this which grieves me so, and
gives me such bitter pain."

"If you had come to the defence of my father, he would have felt
gratitude towards you. From gratitude one passes readily to affection.
You would have been received openly in the house."

"Your father is incapable of affection for any one," replied Montoria.
"Do not hope that we can accomplish anything in that way. Let us
trust that we may arrive at the fulfilment of our desires by hidden
ways, perhaps by the help of God when it least seems likely. Let us
not depend upon aught else, or think of what is before us. We are
surrounded by dangers and obstacles that seem unsurmountable. Let us
hope for help from the unseen, and filled by faith in God and the power
of our love, let us wait for the miracle which will unite us. For it
will be a miracle, Mariquilla, a wonder like those they tell of in
olden times, that we refuse to believe."

"A miracle!" exclaimed Mariquilla, sadly. "It is true. You are a young
gentleman of position, the son of parents who would never consent
to see you married to the daughter of Señor Candiola. My father is
abhorred all over the city. Everybody flees from us. No one visits us.
If I go out they point at me, and look at me with insolent contempt.
Girls of my own age will not associate with me, and the young men of
the city who go about singing serenades under the windows of their
sweethearts, come to mine to utter insults against my father, calling
me also dreadful names to my face. Oh, my God, I understand that it
would be indeed a miracle for me to be happy! Augustine, we have known
each other now for nearly four months, and you have not yet told me the
name of your parents. It certainly cannot be as odious as mine. Why do
you hide it? If it were necessary that our love should be made public,
you would not dare meet the looks of your friends, you would flee with
horror from the daughter of Candiola."

"Oh, no, don't say that!" cried Augustine, pressing against Mariquilla,
and hiding his face in her lap. "Don't say that I am ashamed of loving
you. In saying that you insult God. It is not true. To-day our love
remains a secret, because it is necessary that it should be so. But
when it is necessary to make it known, I will make it known, and defy
the anger of my father face to face. Yes, Mariquilla, my parents will
curse me, and turn me out of doors. A few nights ago you said to
me, looking at that monument which we can see from here, 'When that
tower becomes straight, I will leave off loving you.' I swear to you
that the strength of my love is more immovable than the equilibrium
of yonder tower; for that could fall to the ground, but could never
stand upright. The works of man are variable, those of Nature are
unchangeable and rest evermore upon an everlasting base. You have seen
the Moncayo, that great rock which is near Poniente in the suburb?
Well, when Moncayo gets tired of being in that place, and moves and
comes walking towards Saragossa, putting one of its feet upon our city
and reducing it to powder, then and then only will I cease to love you."

By this sort of hyperbole and poetic naturalism my friend expressed
his great love, flattering the imagination of the beautiful girl, who
responded, leaning forward, moved by an impulse like his own. They were
both silent for a moment, then the two, or rather the three of us,
exclaimed all together, looking at the tower whose belfry had flung
to the winds two signals of alarm. At the same moment a globe of fire
ploughed the black space, describing rapid circles.

"A bomb! It is a bomb," exclaimed Mariquilla, trembling, and throwing
herself into the arms of her lover. The dreadful light passed swiftly
over our heads, over the garden and the house, illuminating on its way
the tower, the neighboring houses, and the nook where we were hidden.
Then the report was heard. The bell began to ring violently, and was
joined by others near and far, loud, heavy, sharp, jangled; and we
heard the noise of feet and voices of people in the nearest streets.

"That bomb will not kill us," said Augustine, soothing his sweetheart.
"Are you afraid?"

"Yes, very, very much afraid," she answered. "I spend the nights
praying, asking God to keep the fire away from our house. Until now
no misfortune has come near us, either now or in the other siege. But
how many unhappy ones have perished, how many houses of good people
who never harmed any one have been destroyed by the flames! I long
earnestly to go like other women and take care of the suffering; but my
father forbids me, and is angry with me whenever I propose it."

As she said this, we heard within the house a distant sound of talking,
in which the harsh tones of Candiola were mingled with the voice of
Guedita. We three, obeying one impulse, drew into the shadow and held
our breaths, fearing to be surprised. Then we heard the voice of the
miser coming nearer, and saying,--

"What are you doing up at this hour, Señora Guedita?"

"Señor," answered the old woman, showing herself at a window which
opened upon the balcony, "who can sleep during this dreadful
bombardment? Perhaps a bomb may come and meddle with us here. What if
the house should take fire, and the neighbors should come to drag out
the furniture and put out the fire, and find us in our night-clothes?
Oh, what a lack of modesty! I do not intend to undress myself while
this devilish bombardment lasts."

"Is my daughter asleep?" asked Candiola, appearing at another garden
window.

"She is upstairs sleeping like a kitten," replied the duenna. "They
speak truly when they say that there are no dangers for innocence. A
bomb does not frighten the child any more than a sky-rocket."

"I wonder if I can see from here where the projectile has fallen," said
Candiola, stretching his body out of the window, in order to be able
to extend his range of vision. "I can see the light of a fire, but I
cannot say whether it is near or far."

"Oh, I don't know anything about bombs," said Guedita, who had come out
on the balcony. "This one has fallen over there by the market."

"So it seems. If only all would fall upon the houses of those who
persist in keeping up the defence and causing the destruction! If I
am not deceived, Señora Guedita, the fire is near the Calle de la
Triperia. Are not the storehouses of the junta of supplies over there?
Oh, blessed bomb, why not fall into the Calle de la Hilarza, upon the
house of that cursed, most miserable thief! Señora Guedita, I am going
to the Calle de la Hilarza, to see if it has fallen on the house of
that proud, meddlesome, cowardly thief, Don José de Montoria. I have
prayed for it to-night to the Virgin del Pilar with so much fervor, and
also at the Santas Masas and at Santo Dominguito del Val, that at last
I believe I have been heard."

"Señor Don Jeronimo," said the old woman, "do not go out! The cold of
the night is bad for you, and it is not worth risking your lungs to see
where the bomb has fallen. It is enough that it has not meddled with
this house. If that one which passed did not fall into the house of
that barbarian of an official, another will fall to-morrow. The French
have a good handful. Now, your honor, go to rest. I will stay up and
look after the house."

Candiola changed his mind about going out, it seemed, in accordance
with the good counsels of his servant, and, shutting the window, he
was heard no more during all the rest of the night. But although he
disappeared, the lovers did not break the silence, fearful of being
overheard. And not until the old woman came to tell us that the señor
was snoring like a peasant was the interrupted dialogue continued.

"My father wished that the bombs would fall upon the house of his
enemy," said Mariquilla. "I should not like to see them fall anywhere;
but if at any time one could wish ill-fortune to a neighbor, it would
be now, do you not think so?"

Augustine made no answer.

"You went away. You did not see how that man, the most cruel, the
most cowardly of all who came, knocked him down in his blind fury, and
trampled upon him. The fiends will kick his soul in hell like that,
won't they?"

"Yes," replied the young man, laconically.

"To-day, after it all, Guedita and I dressed the wounds of my father.
He was stretched upon his bed, crazy, desperate. He was twisting about,
gnawing his fists and lamenting that he was not stronger than his
enemy. We tried to console him, but he told us to be silent. He struck
me in the face, he was so angry when he heard that I had thrown away
the money for the flour. He was furious with me. He told me that since
he could not get any more, the three thousand reales on account should
not be despised. He said that I am a spendthrift, and am ruining him.
We could not calm him in any way. Towards nightfall we heard another
noise in the street, and were afraid that the same ones who were here
in the middle of the day were returning. My father was raging, and
determined to get up. I was greatly frightened; but I took courage,
realizing that courage was necessary. Thinking of you, I said, 'If he
were in the house, no one would dare insult us.' As the noise in the
street increased, I plucked up all my courage. I shut and fastened the
doors and gates, and, begging my father to keep quiet in his bed, I
waited, resolved. While Guedita was on her knees, praying to all the
saints in heaven, I searched the house for a weapon. At last I found
a big knife. The sight of it has always frightened me, but to-day I
clutched it fearlessly. Oh, I was beside myself! Now the very thought
of it makes me frightened. I am usually unable to look upon a wounded
man, and tremble at the sight of a drop of blood. I almost cry if I
see any one beat a dog before me. I have never had the force to kill a
mosquito. But this evening, Augustine, this evening, when I heard the
noise in the street, when I thought those blows upon the gate had come
again, when I expected every moment to see those men before me, I swear
to you that if that had happened which I feared, if when I was in my
father's room, by his bedside, if that same man had come who abused
him a few hours before, I swear to you that there I myself would have
struck him through the heart."

"Hush, for God's sake!" cried Montoria, horrified. "You frighten me.
Hearing you, you almost make me feel as if your own hands, these
divine hands, struck cold steel through my breast. Nobody will maltreat
your father again. You see already that your alarm of to-night was
nothing but fright. No, you would not have been capable of what you
say. You are a woman, and a weak one, sensitive, timid, incapable of
killing a man, unless you kill him of love. The knife would have fallen
from your hands, and you would not have stained their purity with the
blood of a fellow being. These horrible things are only for us men,
born for conflict; sometimes we find ourselves in the sad strait of
wrenching the life from other men. Mariquilla, do not talk any more
nonsense. Do not think of those who offended you! Forgive them, and do
not kill any one, even in thought."




CHAPTER XVI


While they were talking, I observed the face of Mariquilla, which
seemed in the darkness as if modelled of white wax, and of the soft
tone and finish of ivory. From her black eyes, whenever she raised
them to the heavens, swift lights flashed; her black pupils seemed
to reflect the clearness of the sky; in their depths two points of
brightness shone or were hidden, according to the changeful mood
expressed in her glance. It was curious to observe the passionate
creature telling of that stormy crisis which had moved and exalted her
sensibilities to the heights of courage. Her languorous attitude, her
dove-like cooing, the warm affection which radiated in her atmosphere,
did not associate themselves readily with manifestations of heroism in
defence of her insulted father. Attentive observation easily discovered
that both currents flowed from the same source.

"I admire your noble filial affection," said Augustine. "But you must
think of this. I do not exonerate those who maltreated your father.
But you must not forget that he is the only one who has not given
anything for the war. Don Jeronimo is an excellent person, but he has
not an atom of patriotism in his soul. The misfortunes of the city are
of no consequence to him, and he even seems to rejoice when we do not
come out victorious."

Mariquilla sighed, lifting her eyes to heaven.

"It is true," she said; "every day and every hour I beseech him to give
something for the war. I am able to get nothing; although I exaggerate
the necessities of the poor soldiers, and the bad record that he is
making in Saragossa. He only gets angry with me, and says that the one
who brought on the war is the one to pay for it. In the other siege I
was delighted at news of a victory. The fourth of August I went out
into the street all alone, unable to resist my curiosity. One night I
was at the house of the Urries, and they were celebrating the battle
of that day, which had been very brilliant. I also began to rejoice,
and show enthusiasm. An old woman who was present said to me in a high
voice, and a very unpleasant tone, 'My child, instead of indulging
in these emotions, why do you not carry to the hospital an old sheet
to stanch blood? In the house of Señor Candiola, whose cellars are
full of money, is there not some old rag to give to the wounded? Your
miserable papa is the only one, the only one of all the citizens of
Saragossa who has not given anything for the war.' Everybody laughed
on hearing this; but I was dumb with shame, not daring to speak. I
remained in a corner of the room until the end of the party, and nobody
spoke another word to me. My few girl friends who used to love me so
much did not come near me. I could hear people speak from time to time
the name of my father, with harsh comments and ugly nicknames. Oh, it
was heartbreaking! When I started to come home, they hardly told me
good-bye. The host and hostess dismissed me very abruptly. I came home
and went to bed, and cried all night. The shame of it seemed burning in
my blood."

"Mariquilla," cried Augustine, lovingly, "your goodness is so great
that because of it God will forget the cruelties of your father."

"A few days afterwards," she went on, "on the fourth of August, those
two wounded men came that my father's enemy spoke of this morning.
When we heard that the committee had assigned two wounded men to our
house to be taken care of, Guedita and I were delighted, and, wild
with pleasure, began to prepare beds, bandages, and lint. We were
waiting for them anxiously, running to the window every minute to see
if they were coming. At last they came. My father, who had just come
in from the street in a very black mood, complaining that many of his
debtors had been killed, losing him all hope of collecting from them,
received the wounded soldiers very badly. I embraced him, weeping,
and begged him to take them in; but he would not listen to me and
in his blind anger, he pushed them down into the gutter, barred the
door, and went upstairs, saying, 'Let their own parents take care of
them!' It was night. Guedita and I were in perfect despair. We did not
know what to do. We could hear the moans of those two poor fellows,
dragging themselves along in the street, begging for help. My father
shut himself up in his room to make up his accounts, caring nothing
for them or for us. We went softly, so that he would not hear us, to
the front window, and threw them cloths for bandages; but they could
not reach them. We spoke to them, and they held out their hands to us.
We fastened a little basket to the end of a cane, and passed them out
some food; but one of them was dying, and the other suffering so much
that he could not eat. We said what we could to encourage them, and
prayed to God for them. At last we resolved to come down and go out
to help them, if only for a moment. My father caught us here in the
balcony, and was furious. That night, what a night! O Holy Virgin! one
of them died in the street, and the other one dragged himself on to
find pity elsewhere."

Augustine and I were silent, reflecting upon the monstrous
contradictions of that house.

"Mariquilla," my friend said, presently, "how proud I am of loving you!
Saragossa does not know your heart of gold, and it must be known. I
wish to tell the whole world that I love you, and prove to my parents
when they know it that I have made a good choice."

"I am like any other girl," said Mariquilla, with humility; "and your
parents will not see in me anything but the daughter of the one whom
they call the Mallorcan Jew. Oh, the shame kills me! I wish I could
go away from Saragossa, somewhere that I could never again see any of
these people. My father came from Palma, it is true; but he is not a
Jew. He is descended from the old Christians; and my mother was a woman
of Aragon, of the Rincon family. Why are we despised? What have we
done?"

Mariquilla's lips quivered in a half disdainful smile. Augustine,
tormented doubtless by painful feeling, remained silent, his brow leant
upon the hands of his sweetheart. Gruesome shapes of dread raised
themselves threateningly between them. With the eyes of the soul he and
she beheld them, filled with fear. After a long pause, Augustine lifted
his face.

"Mariquilla, why are you silent? Tell me."

"Why are you silent, Augustine?"

"What are you thinking about?"

"What are you thinking about?"

"I am thinking that God will protect us," said the young man. "When the
siege is ended, we will marry. If you wish to leave Saragossa, I will
go with you wherever you wish to go. Has your father ever spoken to you
of marriage?"

"Never."

"He shall not prevent your marrying me. My parents will oppose it; but
my mind is made up. I do not understand life except through you, and
if I lost you I could not exist. You are the supreme necessity of my
soul. Without you I should be like the universe without light. No human
power shall separate us as long as you love me. This conviction is
so rooted in me that if I should ever think that we must be separated
in life, it would be to me as if all nature were overthrown. _I_
without _you!_ That seems to me the wildest of ideas. I without you!
What madness, what absurdity! It is like the sea on the top of the
mountains, like the snow in the depths of the ocean. It is like rivers
running through the sky, and the stars made into fiery powder in the
deserts of the earth. It is as if the trees should talk, and man should
live among metals and precious stones in the bowels of the earth. I
am a coward at times, and I tremble, thinking of the obstacles that
seem overwhelming before us; but the confidence that fills my spirit,
like faith in holy things, reanimates me. If sometimes for a moment I
fear death, afterwards a secret voice tells me that I shall not die
as long as you are alive. Do you see all the destruction made by the
siege which we are enduring? Do you see how the bombs and shells shower
about us, and how numbers of my companions fall never to rise? Yet,
except momentarily, none of this causes me any fear. I believe that the
Virgin del Pilar keeps death away from me. Your sensitiveness keeps you
in constant communion with the angels of heaven. You are an angel of
heaven, and loving you and being loved by you gives me a divine power
against which the forces of man avail nothing."

Augustine went on for a long time in this strain, pouring out from his
over-flowing fancy the love and the superstitions which held him in
thrall.

"Indeed, I too have unchanging confidence, as you say," said
Mariquilla. "I am often afraid that you will be killed; but I know
not what voices I hear in the depths of my soul telling me that they
will not kill you. It may be because I pray so much, pleading with
God to preserve your life among all these horrors and in battle. I
do not know. At night when I go to rest, thinking of the bombs that
have fallen, and those that are falling, and those that will fall, I
go to sleep and dream of battle, and never cease hearing the noise of
cannon. I am very restless, and Guedita, who sleeps near me, says that
I talk in my sleep, saying a thousand mad things. I must certainly say
something, for I am always dreaming. I see you on the wall. I talk
with you, and you answer me. The balls do not touch you; and it seems
to me it is because of the prayers I say for you, waking and sleeping.
A few nights ago I dreamed that I went with other girls to take care
of the wounded, and that we were taking care of a great many, almost
bringing them back to life by what we were doing for them. I dreamed
that when I came back to the house I found you here with your father,
an old man, who was smiling and talking with mine, both seated upon
the sofa in the sala. Then I dreamed that your father smiled at me,
and began to ask me questions. Sometimes I dream sad things. When I
am awake I listen, and if I do not hear the noise of the bombardment,
I ask if it can be that the French have raised the siege. If I hear a
cannonading, I look at the image of the Virgin del Pilar which is in
my room, and I question it in thought, and it answers me that you are
not dead, without my knowing how the answer is given. I spend the day
thinking about the ramparts, and I wait at the window to hear what the
soldiers say who pass by in the street. Sometimes I feel tempted to
ask them if they have seen you. Night comes; I see you again, and I
am, oh, so contented! The next day Guedita and I occupy ourselves in
cooking something good, unknown to my father. If it is successful, we
save it for you; if it is not quite so nice, that little friar called
Father Busto takes it to the wounded and sick. He comes after dark
to get it, on the pretext of visiting Doña Guedita, of whom he is a
kinsman. We ask him how goes the battle, and he tells us all about it,
that the troops are performing deeds of great valor, and the French
will be obliged to retire in good time. This news that all goes well
makes us wild with joy. The noise of the bombs saddens us afterwards,
but praying we recover our tranquillity. Alone in our room at night, we
make lint and bandages which Father Busto also takes secretly, as if
they were stolen goods. If we hear my father's steps, we hide it all
quickly, and put out the light, because if he should find out what we
are doing he would be very angry."

Mariquilla smiled almost gayly as she told of her fears and joys with
divine simplicity. The peculiar charm of her voice is indescribable.
Her words, like the vibration of crystal notes, left a harmonious
echo in the soul. As she ceased speaking, the first splendors of dawn
illuminated her face.

"The day is breaking, Mariquilla," said Augustine, "and we must go.
To-day we are going to defend Las Tenerias. This will be a dreadful
day, and many will be killed. But the Virgin del Pilar will protect us,
and we shall live to rejoice in victory. Mariquilla, the balls will
not touch me."

"Do not go yet," replied the daughter of Candiola. "Day is coming, it
is true; but they do not need you yet upon the walls."

The bell in the tower sounded.

"Look how those birds cruise about in the heavens, announcing the
dawn," said Augustine, with bitter irony.

One, two, three bombs traversed the sky, as yet faintly illumined.

"How frightful!" cried Mariquilla, yielding to the embrace of Montoria.
"Will God keep us to-day as He preserved us yesterday?"

"We must go to the walls," I cried, rising quickly. "Do you not hear
all the drums and bells sounding the call to arms?"

Mariquilla, in indescribable panic, was weeping and trying to detain
Montoria. I was resolved on going at once, and endeavored to take him
away with me. The noise of the drums and the bells in the belfries
of the city were sounding the call to arms. And if we did not rush
instantly into the lines, we ran the risk of being shot or arrested.

"I must go, I must go, Mariquilla," said my friend, with profound
emotion. "Are you afraid? No, this house is sacred because you live in
it, and will be respected by the enemy's fire. God will not visit your
father's cruelty upon your sacred head."

The Doña Guedita appeared abruptly, saying that her master was up and
dressing hastily. Then Mariquilla herself hurried us to the foot of the
garden, ordering us to go at once. Augustine was in anguish, and at the
gate, hesitated and stepped backward as if to return to the side of the
unhappy girl, who, half dead of fright, her hands folded in prayer, was
weeping, seeing us go from where she stood in the shade of the cypress
which had sheltered us. At the moment when we opened the gate, a cry
was heard from the upper part of the house, and we saw Candiola, who,
half-dressed, was leaning out in a threatening attitude. Augustine
wished to turn back; but I forced him forward, and we went.

"To the lines! To the lines, at once!" I cried. "They will degrade us,
Augu

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