The possession of San Francisco would decide the fate of the city. That
vast edifice, situated in the middle of the Coso, gave an incontestable
superiority to the side which occupied it. The French began cannonading
it very early, with the intention of opening a breach for the assault;
and the Saragossans transferred thither the greater part of their
forces to defend it. As the number of soldiers was now greatly
decreased, a large number of leading citizens, who until then had not
served except as aids, took up arms. Cereso, Sas, La Casa, Pidrafita,
Escobar, Leiva, Don José de Montoria,--all these good patriots hastened
to be among them.
In the narrow entrance of the Calle de San Gil, and in the archway of
Cineja, there were cannon to restrain the enemy's advance. I was sent
to serve these pieces, with other soldiers of the Estremadura regiment,
because there were scarcely any artillerymen left. When I took leave of
Augustine, who remained in the San Francisco in the face of the enemy,
we embraced, believing that we should never see each other again.
Don José de Montoria, finding himself in the barricade of La Cruz del
Coso, got a gunshot in the leg, and had to retire; but leaning against
the wall of a house next to the arch of Cineja, he kept on fighting
for some time, until he brought on a hemorrhage, and at last finding
himself very faint, he called me, and said to me,--
"Señor de Araceli, something is in my eyes. I cannot see anything.
Curse this blood, how fast it runs out when it is most necessary to
keep it. Won't you lend me a hand?"
"Señor," I said, running to him, and holding him up, "it would be
better for you to retire to your lodging."
"No, here is where I want to be. But, Señor de Araceli, if I keep on
bleeding, where the devil is all this blood going? It seems to me as
if my legs are stuffed with cotton. I am falling to the ground like an
empty bag."
He made tremendous efforts of endurance, but almost lost consciousness,
more from the serious nature of his wound, than merely from loss of
blood, after being without food and sleep, and in such trouble during
these past days. Although he begged us to leave him there against the
wall, so that he should not miss a single detail of the battle, we
carried him to his lodging, which was also in the Coso, at the corner
of the Calle del Refugio. The family had been installed in an upper
room. The house was all full of wounded, and the numbers of bodies
deposited there very nearly obstructed the entrance. It was difficult
to get through the narrow doorway and the rooms within, because the men
who had gone there to die, crowded the place, and it was not easy to
distinguish between the living and the dead.
Montoria said, when we entered there, "Don't carry me upstairs, boys,
where my family is. Leave me here below. Here I see a counter which
just suits my purpose."
We put him where he said. This lower story was a shop. Several of the
wounded and victims of the epidemic who had died that day were under
the counter, and many of the sick were lying upon the infected ground
on pieces of cloth.
"Let us see," he said, "if there is any charitable soul who will try a
little to stop the gap where the blood comes out."
A woman came forward to care for the wounded man. It was Mariquilla
Candiola.
"God bless you, child," said Don José, seeing that she was bringing
lint and linen to bandage him. "Enough for now that you patch up this
leg a little. I don't believe there are any bones broken."
While this was going on, some twenty peasants came into the house to
fire from the windows upon the ruins of the hospital.
"Señor de Araceli, are you not going on firing? Wait a moment until I
get up, for I don't seem able to walk alone. I command you to fire from
the window. That's a good shot. Don't let them have time to breathe
over there at the hospital. Look here, lass, make haste! Haven't you a
knife? It would be a good thing to cut off this piece of flesh that's
hanging. How goes it, Señor de Araceli? Are we going to win?"
"It's going all right," I answered from the window. "They are falling
back at the hospital. San Francisco is a bone that is a little hard to
pick."
Mariquilla, meanwhile, was looking fixedly at Montoria, and following
his instructions in caring for him with much solicitude and deftness.
"You are a jewel, child," said my friend. "It seems to me that I can
scarcely feel your hands upon my wound. But what makes you look at me
so much? Does my face look like a monkey's? Let's see, is it finished?
I will try to get up. But I am not able to sit up. What sort of weak
water is this in my veins! Porr--I was going to say--I don't seem able
to correct that bad habit! Señor de Araceli, I don't do very well with
my soul. How goes the battle?"
"Señor, a thousand marvels! Our valiant peasants are working wonders!"
Here a wounded officer was brought in for whom a ligature was wanted.
"Everything goes as we would desire it to go," he said to us. "They
will not take San Francisco. Those in the hospital have been repulsed
three times. But the most wonderful thing, señors, took place beside
San Diego. I saw the French gain the orchard joining the house Los
Duendes, where they were met by the bayonets of those brave soldiers of
Orihuela commanded by Pino-Hermoso, who not only dislodged them, but
they say killed a lot of them, and took thirty prisoners."
"I wish to go there! Viva the battalion of Orihuela! Viva the Marquis
of Pino-Hermoso!" exclaimed Don José de Montoria, with tremendous
fervor. "Señor de Araceli, let us go there! Lift me up. Isn't there a
pair of crutches there? Señors, my legs have given out. But I will go
there in spirit. My heart is there. Good-bye, child, beautiful little
nurse. But what makes you look at me so? Do you know me? I think I have
seen your face somewhere, but I don't remember where."
"I also have seen you once, only once," answered Mariquilla, tactfully,
"and God grant you do not remember me!"
"I shall not forget your kindness," said Montoria. "You seem to be
a good girl, and very pretty, that's sure. I am very grateful, most
grateful. But bring those crutches or a stick, Señor de Araceli. Give
me your arm. What is this which goes back and forth before my eyes? Let
us go over there and drive the French out of the hospital."
Dissuading him from his rash idea of going out, I started alone, when
I heard an explosion so loud that no words have power to describe it.
It seemed as if the whole city had been thrown into the air by the
eruption of an immense volcano from beneath its foundations. All the
houses trembled. The sky was obscured by an immense cloud of smoke and
dust, and along the whole length of the street we saw pieces of wall
falling, and shattered fragments, and beams, roofs, tiles, showers of
earth, and all sorts of things.
"Holy Virgin del Pilar, save us!" exclaimed Montoria. "It seems as if
the whole world has blown up."
The sick and the wounded were crying out, believing that their last
hour had come. We all commended ourselves to God.
"What is it? Is Saragossa still in existence?" one asked.
"Are we blown up too?"
"This terrible explosion must have been in the Convent of San
Francisco," said I.
"Let us run over there," cried Montoria, trying to make strength of
his weakness. "Señor de Araceli, did they not say that all precautions
had been taken to defend San Francisco? Isn't there a pair of crutches
anywhere here?"
We went into the Coso, where we were immediately assured of the fact
that a large part of San Francisco had been blown up.
"My son was in the convent," said Montoria, pale as the dead. "My God,
if thou art resolved upon his death also, may he die for his country at
the post of honor."
The loquacious beggar of whom I made mention in the first pages now
approached us, walking laboriously upon his crutches, and seeming in a
very bad state of health.
"Sursum Corda," I said to the patriot, "give me your crutches. You are
doing no good with them."
"Do me the kindness to let me keep them to get to that doorway," said
the cripple, "and then I will give them to you. I do not wish to die in
the middle of the street."
"Are you dying?"
"It seems like it. I am burning with fever. I was wounded in the
shoulder yesterday, and nobody has taken out the ball. I feel that I am
going. Your honor may have the crutches."
"Have you come from San Francisco?"
"No, sir, I was in the Arch del Trenque. There was a cannon there. We
had been firing a great deal. But San Francisco has been blown into
the air when we least expected it. The whole part to the south and the
west came to the ground, burying many people. There has been treachery,
people say. Adios, Señor Don José. Here I stay. My eyes are getting
dim. My tongue thickens. I am going, but the Virgin del Pilar will
protect me. And here your honor has my oars."
With them Montoria got on slowly towards the scene of the catastrophe.
But we had to go around by the Calle San Gil, because we could not get
through directly. The French had ceased firing upon the convent from
the hospital; but, assaulting by San Diego, they quickly occupied the
ruins, which we could not dispute with them. The church and the tower
of San Francisco remained standing.
"Eh, Father Luengo," said Montoria, calling to the friar of that name,
"what is it? Where is the Captain-General? Has he perished in the
ruins?"
"No," replied the friar, stopping. "He is with officers in the Plazuela
de San Felipe. I can announce the safety of your son Augustine to you,
because he was one of those who were occupying the tower."
"Blessed be God!" said Don José, crossing himself.
"All the part at the south and the west has been destroyed," proceeded
Luengo. "I do not know how they have been able to mine in that place.
They must have placed the mines under the chapter house. We had not
mined there, believing that it was a safe place."
An armed peasant who had come up said:
"Yes, and we had the next house, and the French, having possession
of parts only of Santa Rosa and San Diego, could not readily approach
there."
"As far as that is concerned," said an armed priest who had joined us,
"it is supposed that they have found a secret passage-way between Santa
Rosa and the house los Duendes. Being in possession of the cellars of
that, they could, by digging a short gallery, get under the chapter
house, which is quite near."
"It is now known," said a captain of the army. "The house los Duendes
has a large cellar of which we knew nothing. From this cellar there
was undoubtedly a communication with Santa Rosa. The house formerly
belonged to the convent, and served it as a storehouse."
"Well, if this communication exists," said Luengo, "I understand
perfectly who has discovered it to the French. You know that when the
enemy was repulsed in the orchard of San Diego some prisoners were
taken. Among them was Candiola, who during these past days has often
visited the French camp, and last night went over to the enemy."
"It must be so," said Montoria; "because the house los Duendes belongs
to Candiola. The damned Jew knew very well the passage-ways and hiding
places of that building. Señors, let us go to see the Captain-General.
Is it believed that the Coso can still be defended?"
"Does it not have to be defended?" said a soldier. "After all, it is
only a trifle which has happened, a few more dead. We will try to
regain the church of San Francisco."
We all looked at that man who spoke so serenely of the impossible. The
sublime terseness of his expression of perseverance seemed like a jest,
and in that epoch of the incredible, similar jests were wont to end in
reality.
Let those who hesitate to give credence to my words open the history,
and they will see that some few dozens of men, wasted, famished,
barefooted, and half-naked, some of them wounded, held out all that
day in the tower. Not content with holding it, they went out over the
roof of the church, opening here and there many places in the roof, and
paying no attention to the fire directed upon them from the hospital,
they began to throw hand-grenades upon the French, obliging them to
abandon the church when night came. All of the night was passed in
attempts by the enemy to regain it; but they could not accomplish it
until the following day, when the riflemen on the roof retired, passing
to the house of Sástago.