Part 20

Followed by the Spaniards, he dashed from the attic down the stairs into the first room on the floor below. At the window were three men, so intent on firing at the barricade that they were not aware of their danger until the invaders were upon them. When they turned and saw their enemies they had no thought of surrender. In this bitter war surrender to a Spaniard was only another name for death. But before they could bring their muskets to the shoulder the Spaniards were at their throats. They fell. Instantly the victors rushed to another room. In a few minutes all the occupants of that floor were disposed off.

By this time the rest of the garrison had taken the alarm. Many of the French had left their posts, and were crowding downstairs in a panic, believing that a large force of Spaniards had gained a lodgment in the house. Tio Jorge below inferred from the slackening of the enemy's fire that the bold attempt had been successful. Without losing an instant he ordered some of his men to make another onslaught with the beam on the door, and sent others round to the back of the house, where a narrow lane was at present clear of the French, to intercept any who should endeavour to escape there. Panic had now seized the French in the house. Fearing to be taken in front and rear, most rushed downstairs towards the back entrance, a few obstinately refusing to stir, and calling on their comrades to stand firm. But Jack and his men poured in pursuit, shouting, to keep up the illusion of their being a numerous body. Below, the door at last fell in with a crash before the strokes of the ram. Tio Jorge burst in, and found only a small knot of French between himself and Jack's men. The execution was swift and sure. Of all the French who had used that house as their fortress only those escaped who, fleeing out by the back door, cut their way through the Spaniards sent by Tio Jorge to intercept them.

This brilliant success, won by citizens without the help of the soldiery, wrought the spirits of the people to a high pitch of exultation. Santiago Sass, who had escaped in all his wild peregrinations without a scratch, rejoined Tio Jorge's band, and rolled out sonorous sentences in jubilant frenzy. But the Spaniards were not satisfied with the first triumph of the day. There were other blocks of houses in possession of the French. After a brief respite, during which reinforcements of soldiers and citizens came up in considerable numbers, the defenders set to work systematically to dislodge the French from the positions so hardly won. The housetop device was put in practice wherever access could be obtained. For hours the struggle continued, and Jack, who worked as hard as any man, was struck with admiration of the untiring enthusiasm of the Spaniards. Fighting from barricade to barricade, and from house to house, they retook position after position, until, as early dusk fell, the French had been cleared out of all the houses and forced back to their impregnable position in the Santa Monica and San Agustin convents.

The din of combat died down. Jack had arrived at the Casa Ximenez, the scene of his adventure in the morning. Entering the house, he found many signs of its temporary occupation by the French, but the fighting had been so intense and so persistent that they had had no time to perpetrate the wanton mischief and destruction which usually marked their progress. Jack went through the house to make sure that none of the French were left, and, entering one of the rooms, he guessed by the character of its furniture and appointments that it belonged to the young lady whom he had assisted earlier in the day. The French had been so much occupied in the lower rooms that they had left this room untouched. There were a few trinkets on the dressing-table. Jack put these into his pocket, knowing that the Senorita would be glad to receive anything of value that could be rescued. Then, descending into the patio, he found that Tio Jorge had already told off a company of his men to occupy the house during the night, in preparation for the renewed attack which was undoubtedly to be expected in the morning.

"Come, Senor," shouted the big fellow, "we will now go to the captain-general and tell him what we have done for Saragossa this day. And your part, por Dios! is one that no Saragossan will forget. Come!"

They left the house. The sounds of bombardment and musketry had ceased; parties of the citizens were moving about collecting the dead and wounded; women and children were emerging for a breath of air from the close cellars in which they had sheltered during the day. As Tio Jorge and Jack passed into the street, they became aware, from the attitude of a group of soldiers and citizens all looking in one direction, that something unusual was attracting their attention. Looking up the street, towards the same end at which he had entered it nearly twelve hours before, Jack saw, by the light of the torches carried by search-parties, a small figure advancing--the figure of a boy, with a Frenchman's kepi many sizes too large for him almost obliterating his head, a Frenchman's sword dangling from his belt, its point trailing a yard behind him along the cobbles, and a Frenchman's musket weighing down his shoulder. The boy was staggering along under his burdens, yet contrived to maintain an air of jauntiness and assurance that held the Spaniards spell-bound with surprise and curiosity.

"The imp again!" ejaculated Jack with a smile.

The boy caught sight of him, and, endeavouring to hasten his step, tripped over his sword and fell headlong, rising a moment after without musket or kepi, and revealing the swarthy face and unkempt hair of Pepito.

"Here I am, Senor," he said with his enigmatical smile. "Not lost, Senor."

"So I see. And what have you been doing? What do you mean by giving me the slip like that, and making me think the French had got you?"

Pepito looked aggrieved. He took out of his vest the silver watch Jack had given him at Seville, and held it dangling by its chain.

"Senor's gift; should it get wet? Never. I got into the water; not the watch. No, I put it on one of the thwarts. We got out of the boat. Senor went so fast that I forgot the watch. It was Senor's fault. I went back for it, Senor; I got it; then when I came away--ha! I hear the march of men. I stop; I hide; all day long from my deep hole I see the French shoot with their big guns across the river. I wait; I think, what if Senor is dead? I wish I had come with him, and let the watch get wet. Then, wonder of wonders! the Busne drive the French back. They go by my hole; one falls; then all is quiet, and I steal out and get these things from the dead man, and I come in and have Senor as well as the watch."

Jack could hardly find fault with the boy for wishing to preserve his own gift. Explaining to Tio Jorge that Pepito was a servant of his, he turned to resume his interrupted journey northward, and bade Pepito follow him closely.

*CHAPTER XXI*

*Night on the Ramparts*

The Cafe Arcos--The Story of the Siege--Perfervour--An Oath--The Casa Alvarez--The Missing Sentry--Through the Lines--Miguel Enters Saragossa--Don Casimir is Astonished--Moonshine

On arriving with Tio Jorge at the Aljafferia Castle, Jack found that Palafox had already received from Santiago Sass news of the excellent work done in the south-eastern quarter of the city. But Tio Jorge insisted on telling the story again, and dwelt with enthusiasm on the part the English Senor had played--his idea to scale the roofs, and his intrepidity in fighting by the barricades. The big Spaniard loved a hard fighter, and Jack could have found no surer way to his confidence and respect.

"Excellent! excellent!" cried Palafox; "you came to us most opportunely, Senor. And let me tell you, the good opinion of our brave Tio Jorge is itself the highest praise. Would to God that our success had been as certain at other points! Unhappily, the French have exploded mines in the neighbourhood of Santa Engracia, and the most heroic efforts of our men have failed to dislodge them from the ground they have gained. Unhappily, also, Don Hernando de Solas, my valiant lieutenant there, was shot as he led his men for the tenth time to the assault, and I have no one whom I can conveniently send to take his place."

"Send the English Senor," cried Tio Jorge instantly. "He has shown what he can do; he is an officer who has served with the great Sir Moore; he is the very man for the post."

Palafox looked for a moment doubtfully at Jack's youthful face.

"You are young yourself, Don Jose," added Tio Jorge, divining his general's reluctance. "Por Dios! was there ever before a captain-general so young!"

"It is an arduous post," said Palafox. "Just now it has to bear the brunt of the French attack, I fear. But you have shown valour and resource, Senor Lumsden; will you undertake the command of Don Hernando's district?"

"I will do my best, Senor, if you entrust it to me."

He spoke quietly, but his pulse leapt at the thought of the work opening before him. Accepting the general's offer with alacrity, he set off in a few minutes with Tio Jorge, who had offered to introduce him to his men, and procure for him a Spanish uniform to replace his soiled garments. As they were hastening along the Coso, crowded with people now that the day's fighting had ceased, Tio Jorge stopped at the door of a big cafe.

"You must be famished, Senor," he said. "You have had nothing but a bite and a sup all day. Here is the cafe of my friend Jorge Arcos; let us enter. When we have eaten and drunk it will be time to seek the ramparts."

Jack was nothing loth. In a few minutes he was seated amid a crowd of ardent Saragossans, whose blackened features and soiled garments bespoke the part they had played in the defence of their city. Jorge Arcos himself, a robust and lusty Spaniard, attended to Jack's wants when he had learnt from Tio Jorge that the young Senor was an English officer who had done good work that day, and been entrusted by Palafox with the Santa Engracia command. The big host, as well as the miscellaneous company in the room, looked somewhat askance at the weird figure of Pepito, who had closely followed his master. His garb showed him to be one of the despised and outcast gitanos; but on Jack's explaining that the boy had been of service to him, Arcos shrugged, and brought him some food and diluted wine, which the hungry little fellow despatched with gusto.

As he ate, Jack fell into conversation with his host, and showed a curiosity to learn something of the earlier history of the siege. The mere suggestion was enough to set the man's tongue wagging. He evidently loved the sound of his own voice, and he owed indeed much of his popularity with the citizens to his rough-and-ready eloquence.

"A remarkable siege, you say, Senor?" he said. "It is, in truth; never was such a siege since the world began! And 'tis not the first time the French pack of wolves has come to eat us. Last year, by the favour of Our Lady of the Pillar, we escaped their greedy jaws; and now also again they shall rue the day they came a-hunting. For six weeks we have withstood them; 'tis six weeks since they began to throw their bombs and balls into our midst. Aha! and on the second day after, they sent a man to summon us to surrender. Surrender! Little they knew Don Jose Palafox, little they knew the hearts of our people--of Tio Jorge here, and Tio Marin, of the padres Don Basilio and Santiago Sass and Consolacion; aye, and of our noble ladies and of our poor folks such as I myself. Surrender! Why, our people well-nigh tore the French messenger in pieces! We knew they were coming to invest us; did they think we should open our gates or that our walls would fall flat as the walls of Jericho? Por Dios!"

He uttered a scornful guffaw, and shouts of approval broke from the crowd.

"No, no. We had warning; the people from the countryside came flocking in--workers in olive groves and vineyards, potters from the villages, swineherds and muleteers--and Don Jose gave them each his task, and with our own people they toiled night and day to make our city strong. Men and women and children, sixty thousand of us, we wrought upon the ramparts. Some carried earth in baskets, others plied the spade, others went into the outskirts with picks and axes, and levelled houses and orchards until, for half a mile round, the country was as bare as my table here, a level waste on which no enemy could find a wall or tree to shelter him. Thus we strengthened our defences, building bastions and raising mounds, till the whole city was encircled with strong ramparts from the Ebro to the Huerba.

"And all this time our people were gathering food--great stores of corn and maize, oil and fish; and some were making powder and bullets, and others were building barriers across the streets with timber and sand-bags, so that if the accursed French did break through our walls we could still fight from street to street, as you have seen to-day, Senor."

"Yes, but they are gaining ground; how can we hold out longer, Jorge Arcos?" said a voice in the crowd.

Arcos glared around and smote upon the table.

"Where is that coward?" he cried passionately. "Where is he? For whom does the gibbet stand in the Coso? Is it not there for cowards, and weaklings, and traitors, and all who talk of surrender? Hold out longer! We have only begun. The French have got in here and there--well, what of that? Every house captured costs them a day; and every day brings our triumph nearer. Have we not ample food? Is there a wretch in Saragossa who complains of hunger? Set him before me; let me see his face; he shall prove his words here in my presence, or--" He made a significant gesture, and continued: "No, we are not hungry; we can hold out for months; and meanwhile friends are hastening to our succour. North and south, east and west, armies are collecting. The French shall be hemmed round like pigs for the butcher; the February rains shall descend and flood their trenches; and by the grace of Our Lady of the Pillar we shall be able once again to foil the plans of the Corsican dog, and the men of Aragon will set such an example to the men of Andalusia and Castile, of Leon and Estremadura, of Catalonia and Navarre, that no Frenchman shall be left alive between the mountains and the sea."

Loud vivas rang through the room as Arcos brought his oration to a close. It was no surprise to Jack to hear such a speech from the lips of an ordinary cafe-keeper--every Spaniard is an orator,--but he by no means shared the speaker's assurance. The influx of so many people from the country must have swelled the population far beyond its normal limit. Overcrowding involved disease; the encroachments of the French must constantly narrow the habitable region; in the exposed parts only the vaults and cellars would be safe from bombardment; and while the operations of war claimed their full tale of victims, Jack feared that pestilence would carry off still more. But he said not a word of his apprehensions, and soon afterwards, bidding his host and the company a cordial adieu, he left with Tio Jorge and Pepito.

They passed the Franciscan convent beyond the Coso, cut through narrow tortuous side streets, each barricaded and guarded, passed the Capuchin nunnery, and came at length to the district of Santa Engracia, in which a few days before the French had gained a lodgment by sapping and mining and direct assault. As they passed along a street from which the French had been driven at the point of the bayonet, but which was now a mere heap of charred and smoking ruins, Jack saw a young lady standing before the smouldering embers of one of the houses. By her side was a little boy. The lady, who could not have been more than twenty-five years of age, was pale and haggard, and gazed upon the ruins of her home like a very statue of sorrow. As Tio Jorge and Jack came up to her, they heard her talking to the boy in low fierce tones.

"It is the Dona Mercedes Ortega," said Tio Jorge half to himself. "What is the matter, Senora?" he asked.

She turned and threw back her mantilla. Jack had never seen a face in which utter woe and desolation was so piteously imprinted. Her eyelids were swollen with weeping; her eyes blazed out of dark sunken rims; her lips were quivering.

"That was my home," she said in an agony of grief that Jack never forgot. "My husband lies there, and my father. My brothers died on the ramparts; my little girl died of fever in my arms. Only Juanino is left, only Juanino, he and I; we are alone--alone--alone!"

Jack turned away; there was a mist before his eyes. Then suddenly the woman's tone changed from grief to rage. Her next words seemed to bite into Jack's soul.

"Stay, Senor!" she cried; "stay, Tio Jorge! I call you to witness what I teach my Juanino. Yes, I teach him; he will never forget; it is for a mother to teach her son his duty. He shall be a scourge to all the accursed race. He shall kill, kill, kill, knowing no rest till he join his father--his father whom the French have killed!"

The boy looked up in her face with eyes of terror.

"Put your hands together," she continued, "and swear that henceforth, in war or peace, at home or abroad, in the street or in the field, you will kill every Frenchman you may meet, kill without mercy or ruth, and thus avenge me and all your house. Swear, Juanino!"

Jack shuddered as he heard the little fellow, whose age was perhaps seven years, repeat the terrible oath his frantic mother demanded of him. At that moment the horrors of war were brought home to Jack's mind more forcibly than ever before; nothing in the terrible retreat to Corunna had been so terrible as the picture of the young widow's desolate grief and passionate longing for vengeance.

He passed on, with Tio Jorge and Pepito, into a small plaza out of which several narrow streets radiated. The place was familiar to him, and a few steps farther on he recognized the Casa Alvarez, and remembered, what he had forgotten till now, that the house of his old friend stood almost within a stone's-throw of the Santa Engracia convent.

"This was the head-quarters of Don Hernando," said Tio Jorge. "You had better make it yours also, Senor."

"Yes. But let us go on to the ramparts now. I want to see the position, and the men. Do you know, by the by, what has become of the family of Don Fernan Alvarez? The old Senor himself is dead."

"I cannot tell you, Senor. He was a good man, was Don Fernan. He had one daughter; was it not so? But they were far above a poor man like me, and I know nothing about the Senorita."

Jack felt a curious pleasure in knowing that the Casa Alvarez was in his own district, and would actually be his head-quarters. Hastening down the street towards the walls, he enquired whether the ramparts were manned in force at night in anticipation of attack during the hours of darkness. Tio Jorge informed him that the French had not risked a night attack in force since the beginning of the siege. They continued their mining operations, but they had found it so difficult to make headway above-ground, even in the daylight, that actual assaults and fighting seldom or never occurred between dark and dawn. The ramparts were therefore guarded by a sufficient number of sentries, but not occupied in force, the defenders being only too glad to recruit their overtaxed energies with sleep. When Jack arrived at the wall he found sentries posted at intervals of a few yards. He learnt from Tio Jorge that his command extended from the Santa Engracia convent some fifty yards to the north, where it adjoined the Porta Quemada district under the charge of a personal friend of Palafox, Don Casimir Ulloa. It happened that Don Casimir was making a round of his sentries before leaving for the night, and to him Jack was introduced by Tio Jorge at the point where their commands met. Tio Jorge then took his leave, promising to call at the Casa Alvarez on the way back, and see that a room was arranged for the Senor's occupation.

"Is all quiet to-night, Senor?" asked Jack, after the first compliments had passed.

"Yes; nothing has happened since the French blew up a house by the Santa Engracia convent just before dark. But one thing puzzles me, Senor. Do you know this part of the city?"

"I was here once before, but that was six years ago, and I was too much a child then to remember it well now."

"But you will know that beyond the wall here, which has been greatly strengthened and thickened, the ground slopes steeply down to the River Huerba. You can see it; the water shines in the moonlight. On the other side of the ravine, at the top, are the French trenches."

"I see. What puzzles you, Senor?"

"I am coming to it. Every night for ten days past I have been at this spot at this hour, and every night I have either seen or heard a French sentry exactly opposite. To-night, however, there is a difference. At dusk we saw the Frenchman tramping up and down behind the trench, just out of range of your good English muskets, Senor; we heard the guard changed; but a few minutes ago, when I looked, I found that the sentry had disappeared. Perhaps my eyes are at fault. Will you look, Senor?"

Jack looked across the ravine. A pale half-moon was shining, as yet somewhat low in the sky, and the ravine and river-bed were gloomed by black shadows. The line of the entrenchments showed rugged against the background, in which watch-fires here and there marked the night bivouac of the French. From the far distance came faint and fitful noises; the gurgling wash of the river against its embankments made the only sound in the vicinity. Jack ran his eyes along the edge of the entrenchment for a hundred yards in each direction. Certainly no sentinel was in sight.

"Perhaps he is resting," he remarked. "There is no need for him to tramp up and down in sight all the time."

"True, Senor, but why to-night? Why on this night should we miss what we have seen without exception for many nights past?"

"It is certainly strange. I shouldn't think it implied any particular danger of an attack; should you?"

At this moment Pepito touched him on the arm.

"Something crawling, Senor!" he said.

He pointed across the river towards a spot in deep shadow half-way down the opposite slope. Jack looked in that direction, but failed to perceive any moving object.

"You are mistaken, Pepito," he said.

The gipsy was stretched now at full length on the wall, peering, with his hands arching his eyes, into the darkness.

"A man crawling!" he whispered. "See!"

Jack and Don Casimir followed the boy's example, and, keeping the moonlight from their eyes, at length discerned a dark figure crawling slowly down the steep. A moment later, all three caught sight of a second figure following at a short interval the first.

"They are coming within range," whispered Don Casimir. "I will order my men to shoot."

"Stay!" said Jack quickly. "Let us wait. Pass the word along the sentries not to shoot if they see two men approaching. Two men will not overpower us and capture the city, Senor; there is something puzzling, as you say, in all this. We must find out what it means."

The men had now reached the foot of the opposite slope. On the ramparts several pairs of eyes were watching them eagerly. At the brink of the river they halted for a moment, then stepped into the water. Jack looked questioningly at Don Casimir.

"Yes," said the latter, "the Huerba is fordable here."