Part 29

Antonio, who was almost unrecognizable from his wounds, at once returned to the house. Immediately afterwards the remnant of the reserve dashed out, and threw themselves into the fray with a vigour which for a moment checked the enemy's advance. A few seconds later there came the deafening crash which Jack expected. Huge fragments of the walls of the houses were projected into the street, injuring a few of the Spaniards who were still tenaciously defending the extremities of the inner Vallejo barricade, but working fearful havoc among the French between the two barricades and in the street beyond. Volumes of blinding smoke poured from the shattered houses, into which, at Jack's order, Antonio rushed with a party of men. He himself, calling on the rest of his troops to follow him, sprang through the barricade, leading an impetuous charge against the distraught enemy. Even as he did so he heard the strident voice of Santiago Sass behind him, urging on the men, and shouting Latin words of denunciation and triumph. Dismayed by their repeated failures, appalled at the apparent inexhaustibility of the defenders' resources, the French were now giving way like sheep, in spite of all the exertions, example, and admonition of their officers. The big Pole, carried away in the rush towards the outer barricade, there turned and lifted his iron bar to deliver a crushing blow at Jack, who was just behind him. The fraction of a second occupied by his wheeling round cost him his life. Before the blow could fall, Jack closed with him and ran him through the body.

Meanwhile the French in Vallejo, some of whom had been hurt by portions of the flying masonry, had caught the infection of panic, evacuated the position, and fled helter-skelter across the ruins. Jack saw the danger of allowing his men to become widely scattered in pursuit. Stopping at the outer barricade, he ordered his men to withdraw, in spite of the frenzied imprecations of Santiago Sass, who would have thrown himself single-handed against a host. The Spaniards retired slowly; they were clearly indisposed to relinquish the pursuit, though all were well-nigh spent, and some, indeed, when the excitement had subsided, dropped their weapons and fell beside them on the ground. At length the whole of the force was withdrawn behind the inner barricade.

Jack stood there panting, wondering how long respite he would have before the French came on again, when he heard his name called from behind, and, turning, saw Juanita running towards him.

"Go back!" he cried; "for God's sake, go back, Juanita! This is no place for you."

"A white flag, Jack! a white flag!"

"What do you mean?"

"A man is coming round the corner of the street with a white flag. I saw him from a window."

"What! Another regiment coming to attack us!"

"No, it is not a regiment. It is one man carrying a small white flag, and another, an officer, walking by his side. Oh, it must be a flag of truce, Jack! See, there he is, turning the corner of the street."

It was as she said. Above the epaulement protecting the French gun at the end of the street a white flag was held aloft. A moment afterwards the Frenchman bearing it stepped into the street, and, accompanied by an officer, began to approach Jack's position, picking his way among the debris and the bodies of the slain.

"I must go to meet him," said Jack. "Have you anything to match his flag, Juanita? I've nothing fit to be seen."

Juanita handed him her handkerchief. Tying this to a musket, Jack gave his extemporized flag to one of his men, and walked down the street to meet the Frenchman.

*CHAPTER XXIX*

*French Leave*

Overtures--Capitulation--Prisoners of War--Colonel de Ferrusat--In Tudela--Personally Conducted--Adding Insult to Injury--Quos ego--Before a Fall--Out of Bondage

Meeting midway down the street, the officers courteously saluted each other.

"I come with a flag of truce, Senor," said the Frenchman in very bad Spanish.

"I understand French, monsieur," replied Jack with a slight smile, which the other returned. The Frenchman continued, speaking now in French:

"Marshal Lannes has given the order to cease fire, and has sent an aide-de-camp into the town to discuss terms of capitulation."

It was impossible not to feel an unutterable sense of relief. But Jack gave no sign of it to the Frenchman.

"Can you give me any particulars?" he said.

"Yes, monsieur, certainly. Last night General Palafox sent his aide-de-camp to ask our marshal for a three days' truce, and asking impossible terms. These, of course, were refused, and the fighting was resumed. But your people seem now to be more amenable to reason, and, to tell you the truth, monsieur, I have great hopes that this very afternoon the end of this most lamentable siege will come. It is, of course, impossible and useless for your people to continue the struggle."

"That, monsieur, is a matter for our general to determine."

"Allons, allons, monsieur! You have made a brave defence, but you are being driven in at all points, and it can only be a matter of a few hours before we capture your whole city."

"I can only speak for myself, monsieur," said Jack quietly; "but it is now nearly three weeks since I had the honour to be appointed to this quarter. I am now, monsieur, where I was then."

The French officer smiled, and bowing, half-ceremoniously, half-humorously, said:

"Pardon my oversight. Permit me, monsieur, to offer my congratulations to a so gallant foe."

After an exchange of courtesies, Jack returned to his men, who had watched the scene with mingled excitement and distrust.

"Hombres," he said, "a truce is proclaimed. There will be no more fighting for the present."

"Thank God!" exclaimed Juanita. "That means that we shall capitulate at last."

"Capitulate!" cried Santiago Sass. "Never, hombres! To the Aljafferia palace with me! Never will we surrender--never! never!"

But none followed him save Tio Jorge. No sooner had he gone than a tremendous explosion occurred near the University. Some French engineer officers, who had not heard of the cessation of hostilities, exploded a mine, and the jet of stones ascended to such a height that it was visible to the whole town. Crowds of people rushed towards the Aljafferia palace, crying for vengeance on the treacherous French, and demanding that the French envoy, at that moment in consultation with the Junta, should be instantly put to death. He was only saved from being torn in pieces, by the intervention of some Spanish officers with drawn swords, and by a message from the French marshal expressing regret for the unfortunate accident. Marshal Lannes' message to the Junta was peremptory. He allowed two hours for deputies to be sent him with full powers to arrange a capitulation. The news was brought to Jack by Tio Jorge, whose weather-beaten face was expressive of the deepest dejection.

The interval was spent in anxious suspense. Juanita went from one to another of Jack's wounded men, doing all that was possible to ease their sufferings. It was her tender ministry that soothed the last moments of big Jorge Arcos, who was past recovery, and who died breathing words of thankfulness.

Later in the evening Jack learnt the result of the negotiations. The Spanish deputies had again tried to extort impossible terms from Marshal Lannes, but his most effective reply was to unroll before them a plan of his mines, from which they saw that the centre of the city was in imminent danger of being blown to atoms. After this the discussion was short. Jack had to inform his gallant but exhausted men that the garrison was to march out next morning and deliver up their arms. All who would not take the oath of allegiance to King Joseph were to be sent as prisoners to France. He pointed out that the terms were on the whole lenient. The French knew how to respect a brave enemy. And he did not fail to impress upon the men that, so far as they personally were concerned, they could always remember that nowhere else throughout the city had the defence been more stoutly maintained or more successful. This recollection would sweeten whatever was bitter in the surrender.

When the men had accepted the inevitable, and the quarter had settled down, Jack found time for a serious consultation with Juanita. Now that her aunt was dead, there was nothing to fetter her movements. Jack had found a number of respectable farming people who would return, after the capitulation, to their homes in the direction of Calatayud, and had arranged that Juanita should accompany them. He explained to Pepito what was required of him--that he should go with the Senorita, and never leave her except at her own command. Once more he assured Juanita that within a week, by hook or by crook, he would rejoin her. Then, late at night, he accompanied her back to her lodging, and took leave of her in a spirit of unbounded hopefulness.

Next morning the last scene of this great siege was enacted. At daybreak all the posts around the city were occupied by the French. At noon the French troops were drawn up in order of battle on the Aragon road, holding lighted matches in readiness to prevent any attempt of the Spaniards to break loose. Then the garrison marched out. Jack never forgot the sad and touching spectacle. With Don Cristobal and other officers he stood, under guard of a detachment of the 5th Leger regiment, near the Portillo Gate, and witnessed the whole scene as the mixed column, soldiers and peasants, defiled past. It was a motley crowd. There were young and old, some in uniform, others in peasant rags. Even the most ragged had tried to smarten up their appearance by tying bright-coloured sashes round their waists. Their large round hats, surmounted with feathers, and their brown ponchos flung over their shoulders, made their very tatters picturesque. Their pale emaciated features were scorched, and scarred with wounds. Many had long black matted beards. All had been so much weakened by disease and privation that they could scarcely stagger along under the weight of their weapons. Some were smoking cigarillos, and affecting an air of proud indifference to their fate; others took no pains to conceal their rage, but ground their teeth and glared out of their gleaming haggard eyes at the enemy they had withstood so long. Women and children were mingled with them, and these wept bitterly, and, flinging themselves on their knees before the effigy of Our Lady in the gate, prayed for solace in their affliction. The whole population numbered but 15,000 souls; nearly four times that number had perished during the two months of the siege.

The scene was closed by the warriors delivering up their arms and flags, many of them then being unable to refrain from tears and violent cries of rage and despair. Within the city the victorious French had now begun to plunder the houses and churches of all the valuables left in them. At the Aljafferia Castle, Palafox, ill as he was, had been brutally treated by a French colonel, appointed temporary governor of Saragossa. Jack learnt long afterwards that even before the brave captain-general had recovered from his illness he was carried off to France, where Napoleon, instead of treating him as a prisoner of war, with the generosity due to a chivalrous foe, chose to regard him as a traitor, and kept him for several years a captive in the gloomy keep of the Chateau of Vincennes.

Jack himself was more fortunate. Along with Don Cristobal and other officers he fell at first into the more kindly hands of the captain who had brought him the flag of truce. He remained in the French camp for two days after the capitulation, and was able to assure himself that Juanita had got safely away. Meanwhile the main body of the garrison had already been put in motion for France. On the 23rd Jack's own turn came. He took a friendly farewell of the French captain who had been responsible for him, and who was in entire ignorance that he had an Englishman, not a Spaniard, to deal with. His last sight of Saragossa was made terrible by a scene he witnessed as he set out among a large company of officers and men, defenceless prisoners. They passed a spot where two Spaniards in priests' robes stood upright against a wall, opposite a firing-party of French. As the volley rang out, Jack recognized the victims of this act of cold-blooded murder; they were Don Basilio Bogiero and Santiago Sass.

Monsieur le Colonel Hilaire Maxime Lucien de Ferussat, of the 121st regiment of the line, felt pardonably annoyed when he found that his corps, or what remained of it, had been selected, with another of Morlot's regiments, to escort the Spanish prisoners to Bayonne. The duty involved hard marching, and brought no glory, and Glory, as he was never tired of declaiming at his mess-table, was the sole object for which every true Frenchman should live and die. He had not distinguished himself very greatly in the operations of the siege; indeed it was whispered among his fellow-officers, who did not love him, that his selection for the escort duty was by no means a mark of Marshal Lannes' favour. He himself, however, seemed quite unconscious of everything except that he had a grievance in being thus shunted for some weeks off the highroad to fame, and, as was only to be expected, the wretched prisoners in his charge bore the brunt of his displeasure. They were physically incapable of prolonged marches, but that was nothing to monsieur le colonel. He was determined to reach Bayonne as soon as possible. He played the drover with the unfortunate Spaniards, and many of them succumbed to fatigue and illness on the road. The men of his escort, adopting his attitude, and themselves resenting the rapidity of the march after all their hardships, were in no mood to spare the wretches committed to their charge, and many a prod with the butt-end of a musket, or the more lethal bayonet, quickened the steps of laggards until they could endure no longer, but dropped and died.

Mounted on a fine Andalusian charger, Colonel de Ferussat rode up and down the line, roundly abusing the non-commissioned officers of his party whenever he saw any tendency to straggling among the prisoners.

"Peste!" he said to one sergeant, in charge of a herd of some 200 miserable skeletons; "if you value your chevrons you will step out more briskly. No more of this lagging, or, saprelotte! I'll reduce you." A moment or two later he turned to the captain of a company: "How long, monsieur le capitaine," he cried, "how long do you propose to spend in herding these pigs of Spaniards? Your men are dawdling as if they were sweethearting in the Bois."

Such remarks caused a quickening all along the column until the lost ground was made up. With such a commander it was not surprising that the men took short measures to save themselves trouble. Many a prisoner who found the pace too fast, and sank down with a groan, was spared further suffering. One bullet was usually enough.

Late in the afternoon of the second day after leaving Saragossa, Colonel de Ferussat's column wound its way into Tudela, a place held in bitter memory by those of the prisoners who had formed part of Castanos' army on the fatal 23rd of November. The scared inhabitants sullenly submitted to having the prisoners, with their guards, quartered upon them. Every building of any pretensions was occupied; but the smaller houses were left, for monsieur le colonel had a wholesome dread of scattering his men too widely.

Colonel de Ferussat took up his quarters in the Plaza de Toros. His chagrin was somewhat mollified when he found that under the same roof was lodged no less a personage than General Chabot, who was on his way southward to rejoin his division, operating under General Gouvion de Saint-Cyr in Catalonia. The colonel thought a good deal of generals, for did he not expect to be a general himself some day? When, therefore, on entering the house, he found General Chabot himself lolling at ease, his coat thrown open and his jack-boots unlaced, he saluted with an air of unction, and prepared to make himself amiable.

"Bonsoir, monsieur le general!" he said, sweeping his plumed hat at a radius of a yard.

"Bonsoir, colonel!" responded the general. "En route for France, I presume?"

"Yes, monsieur le general, and with the most paltry set of prisoners a French officer ever had. As scarecrows they'd disgrace any farmer's field in La Beauce."

"Ah! I had heard from some of your predecessors on the road about the end of the siege. I wonder at such a rabble being able to hold out so long."

"Rabble indeed, monsieur le general. But there! what are Spaniards but rabble! If you had only seen them three months ago, when the marshal whipped them at this very spot!"

"You were at the battle, colonel?"

"Ma foi!" ejaculated the colonel, "I was indeed present on that amusing day."

"I shall be glad to hear something of the fight--if you can spare time, colonel."

"You honour me by the request. Would you care to ride over the field with me? We have time before it is dark."

"Certainly; I shall understand the details so much the more clearly if I see the actual site."

In a few minutes the two officers were riding side by side over the battle-field, on which many grim tokens of the struggle lay scattered. Striking into the road that led from the village in a south-westerly direction, between olive groves and stone fences, they passed the hill of Santa Quiteria, where the Spanish centre, under San March and O'Neill, had been so cleverly outflanked by Maurice Mathieu, and arrived at length at Cascante, the extreme left of the Spanish position, where La Pena, with characteristic stupidity, had remained inactive throughout the fight. Then, retracing their course, they turned to the left, and rode past the spot where Colbert had held his cavalry until the pursuit began. Leaving Tudela on their right, they came within sight of the Cerro de Santa Barbara, where Roca had been so brilliantly outmanoeuvred by General Morlot.

General Chabot had been so eager to obtain a comprehensive view of the whole scene of action that he had set a quick pace, which the colonel found rather discommoding to his rotundity. But he bore it all without a murmur, for he was deeply imbued with the importance of paying becoming deference to the higher powers. He was, however, somewhat blown and heated when he pulled up at a large house near the Ebro, commanding an excellent view of the Cerro de Santa Barbara and the country whence Morlot had delivered his attack. Round two sides of the house ran a veranda, the roof being supported by light pillars resting on a low balustrade. Beneath the veranda stood a group of Spanish officers. They had just marched in, and were awaiting the preparation of the interior of the building, which was being got ready for them. A sentry with fixed bayonet was stationed at the corner of the veranda, and a squad of some twenty men had piled arms in the open plaza beyond. An equal number of Frenchmen were inside the house.

"A capital horse of yours, colonel!" said the general admiringly, as they reined up just outside the balustrade. "Mine is wheezing a little, you observe, while yours is hardly breathed."

"It is an excellent beast indeed," panted De Ferussat, with a gratified smile. "I got it from a ridiculous old Spanish nobleman at Pamplona, months ago--at a low figure, I assure you; hi! hi! But look, monsieur le general, it was out there"--he pointed towards the Ebro--"that we first came in touch with these cowardly curs of Spaniards."

He made no attempt to moderate his voice. Every word was clearly audible to the gaunt group in the veranda, and some of them looked with a glare of impotent rage at the ill-mannered officer. As if to obtain a clearer view of the field he edged his horse up to the balustrade, and continued his narrative.

"There were about 50,000 of them, but we had at least half that number, so that there was not much doubt of the issue. The more Spaniards in the field, monsieur le general, the more there are to run away. Hi! hi!"

He laughed, a harsh grating cackle of satisfaction that made several of the Spaniards behind him turn livid with wrath. General Chabot, to whom his remarks were ostensibly addressed, seemed ill at ease. Like most of Napoleon's lieutenants, he was a rough-and-ready soldier, but he at any rate had a genuine Frenchman's respect for a gallant foe, and he was reluctant to connive, even tacitly, at De Ferussat's gross insult to helpless prisoners. But, all unconscious of the contempt with which his superior officer was beginning to regard him, the colonel continued:

"Our division, you observe, was posted behind the Cerro de Santa Barbara yonder. There were thousands of Spaniards on the summit. Behold how steep the slope! Imagine their marvellous bravery! Ma foi, monsieur, but courage is indeed magnificent at the top of a hill! Hi! hi! They plumed themselves that we could not get at them. But mark, monsieur le general, that was a mistake--oh! trifling, but a mistake all the same. Why? There were French at the bottom. I was there, monsieur. To me turns General Morlot, and says: 'De Ferussat, mon ami, your battalion will take that hill.' A word--parbleu! and at a word the thing is done. Do you see, monsieur le general, that narrow cleft on the hillside? Voila! That is where we climbed up, I and my men." The general glanced somewhat incredulously at the protuberant figure beside him. "It was unguarded, and before the Spaniards knew what was happening, behold! we are upon them. A few minutes, then pouf!--General Roca's division is pouring past the spot where we are now standing, squeezing through the streets of the city on to the Saragossa road. Farther to the left yonder, General Lefebvre-Desnouettes--alas that he is now a prisoner!--broke the enemy's centre with his cavalry; and presto! the other Spanish generals were kissing the heels of Roca's braves, off to Saragossa. Tredame! how these Spaniards can run when there is a French bayonet behind them! It was laughable, truly a comedy, a farce. I laugh always when I think of it. Hi! hi!"

Colonel de Ferussat's recollections had once more overcome his gravity; but the first strident notes of his cackle had barely had time to lacerate the ears of the prisoners when there was a slight commotion behind him. Even while his mouth was agape he felt a powerful grip upon his collar, and in a twinkling he was turning a complete somersault from the saddle to the balustrade, and thence to the floor of the veranda. While he had been delivering himself of his double-edged reminiscences a young Spanish officer, unobtrusively detaching himself from the group, had moved quietly to within striking distance of the sentry on guard, who was listening with open-mouthed appreciation. Disposing of him with a single knock-down blow, the officer had leapt upon the balustrade and hurled the fat colonel from his seat.

As De Ferussat rebounded from the balustrade, his steed, naturally nervous at this unusual experience, started aside, and the reins were jerked from the Frenchman's grip. In an instant the young officer threw himself into the vacant saddle, and as the horse, now thoroughly alarmed, dashed madly forward, its new rider just succeeded in grasping the reins short at the neck, and clung to his seat by the sheer muscular grip of his knees.