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.