MEXICANS BECOME SUDDENLY MEEK
Trent leaped to the roof. With his left arm he warded off a blow
aimed at his head with the butt of a rifle.
Then his sword flashed, its point going clean through the body
of the Mexican soldier who barred his way.
"Death to the Gringos! Death to the Gringos!" yelled the Mexicans.
But Trent drove back two men with his flashing sword. After him
Dave heaped to the roof, his revolver barking fast and true.
Danny Grin followed, and he darted around to the other side of
the skylight, turning loose his revolver.
The fire was returned briskly by the enemy, all of whom wore the
uniform of the Mexican regular infantry.
In the footsteps of the officers came, swiftly, four stalwart young
sailormen, and now the American force had a footing on the roof.
At first none of the Mexicans thought of asking for quarter.
One of the infantrymen, retreating before Dalzell's deftly handled
sword, and fighting back with his rifle butt, retreated so close
to the edge of the roof that, in another instant, he had fallen
to the street below, breaking his neck.
Ere the last dozen Americans had succeeded in reaching the roof
the fight was over, for the few Mexicans still able to fight suddenly
threw down their rifles, shouting pleadingly:
"_Piedad!_ _piedad!_" (pity).
"Accept all surrenders!" shouted Lieutenant Trent at the top of
his voice.
Four quivering, frightened Mexicans accepted this mercy, standing
huddled together, their eyes eloquent with fear.
The fight had been a short, but savage one. A glance at the roof's
late defenders showed, including the man lying in the street below,
eight dead Mexicans, one of whom was the boyish lieutenant of
infantry who had commanded this detachment. Nine more were badly
wounded. The four prisoners were the only able-bodied Mexicans
left on the roof.
"Pardon, but shall we have time for our prayers?" asked one of
the surrendered Mexicans, approaching Lieutenant Trent.
"Time for your prayers?" Trout repeated. "Take all the time you
want."
"But when do you shoot us?" persisted the fellow, humbly.
"Shoot you?" repeated Trent, in amazement, speaking rapidly in
the Spanish he had acquired at Annapolis and practiced in many
a South American port. Then it dawned upon this American officer
that, in the fighting between Mexican regulars and rebels it had
been always the custom of the victors to execute the survivors
of the vanquished foe.
"My poor fellow," ejaculated Trent, "we Americans always pride
ourselves on our civilization. We don't shoot prisoners of war.
You will be treated humanely, and we shall exchange you with
your government."
"What did that chap say?" Dalzell demanded, in an undertone, as
Darrin laughed.
"The Mexican said," Dave explained, "that he hoped he wouldn't
be exchanged until the war is over."
"There is a hospital detachment signaling from down the street,
sir," reported a seaman from the edge of the roof.
Trent stepped quickly over to where he could get a view of the
hospital party. Then he signaled to the hospital men, four in
number, carrying stretchers, and commanded by a petty officer,
that they were to advance.
"Any of our men need attention, sir?" asked the petty officer,
as he reached the roof.
"Two of our men," Trent replied. "And nine Mexicans."
When it came their turn to have their wounds washed and bandaged
with sterilized coverings, the Mexicans looked bewildered. Such
treatment at the hands of an enemy was beyond their comprehension.
A room below was turned over for hospital use, and there the wounded
of both sides were treated.
Still the firing continued heavily throughout the city. Trent,
with his field glass constantly to his eyes, picked out the nearest
roof-tops from which the Mexicans were firing. Then he assigned
sharpshooters to take care of the enemy on these roofs.
"We can do some excellent work from this position," the lieutenant
remarked to his two younger officers.
It was peculiar of this fight that no regular volleys of shots
were exchanged. The Mexicans, from roof-tops, from windows and
other places of hiding, fired at an American uniform wherever
they could see it.
The very style of combat adopted by the enemy made it necessary
for the Americans, avoiding needless losses, to fight back in
the same sniping way. Slowly, indeed, were these numerous detachments
of Mexicans, numbering some eight hundred men in all, driven back.
Boom! boom! boom! The Mexican artillery now started into life,
driving its shells toward the invaders.
"The real fight is going to begin now," uttered Dave, peering
eagerly for a first glimpse of the artillery smoke.
"I hope the ships tumble down whole squares of houses!" was Danny
Grin's fervent wish.
"If they start that, we're in a hot place," smiled Trent, coolly.
From the harbor came the sound of firing.
"Why, there's only one of our ships firing!" exclaimed Darrin.
"The '_Prairie_' is using some of our guns!"
Presently the heavier detonations died out. So splendidly had
the "_Prairie's_" gunners served their pieces that the Mexican
artillerymen had been driven from their positions.
"These Mexicans will have to wait until they get out of range
of the Navy's guns before they can hope to do much with their
artillery," laughed Lieutenant Trent, then turned again to see
what his sailormen were doing in the way of "getting" Mexican
snipers from other roofs.
Every minute a few bullets, at least, hissed over the roof on
which the detachment was posted.
Trent, believing that he was exposing more men than were needed,
ordered twenty seamen to the floor below.
By one o'clock the firing died slowly away. Though the Mexicans
had made a brave resistance, and had done some damage, they had
been so utterly outclassed by better fighting men that they wearied
of the unequal struggle.
"But when the enemy get heavy reinforcements from the rear," Trent
predicted, as he stood looking over the city, "they'll put up a
fight here in Vera Cruz that will be worth seeing!"
"I can't help wondering," mused Dave Darrin aloud, "what the rest
of the day will bring forth."
"It will be the night that may bring us our real ordeal," hinted
Lieutenant Trent.