"Augustine! Augustine! where art thou?" I called to my friend. But Augustine did not appear. In that moment of alarm, not finding either doorway or ladder to descend, I ran to a window to throw myself out; and the spectacle which met my eyes obliged me to draw back without strength or breath. While the cannons of San José were essaying on the right to bury us in the ruins of the house, and seemed to be accomplishing it without effort, in front of and towards the gardens of San Augustine, the French infantry had succeeded at last in penetrating the breaches, killing those unhappy creatures scarcely to be called men, and finishing those who were already dying, for indeed their desperate agony could not be called life.
From the neighboring alleys came a horrible fire. The cannons of the Calle de Diezma took the place of those of the conquered battery. But the breach taken, the French were securing themselves on the walls. It was impossible for me to feel in my soul a spark of energy on beholding such stupendous disaster.
I fled from the window, terrified,—beside myself. A piece of the wall cracked and fell in enormous fragments, and a square window took the shape of an isosceles triangle; through a corner of the roof I could see the sky. Bits of lime and splinters struck me in the face. I ran further in, following others, who were saying, "This way! this way!"
"Augustine! Augustine!" I called again. At last I saw him among those who were running from one room to another, going up a ladder which led to a garret.
"Are you alive?" I asked him.
"I do not know; it is not important," he answered.
In the garret we broke through a partition wall, and passing into another room, we found an outside staircase. We descended and came to another house. Some soldiers followed, looking for a place to get into the street, and others remained there. The picture of that poor little room is indelibly fixed in my memory, with all its lines and colors, and flooded with plentiful light from a large window, opened upon the street. Portraits of the Virgin and of the saints covered the uneven walls. Two or three old trunks covered with goat-skin stood on one side. On the other side we saw a woman's clothes hanging upon hooks and nails, and a very high but poor-looking bed, although the sheets were fresh. In the window were three large flower-pots with plants in them. Sheltered behind them were two women firing furiously upon the French who occupied the breach. They had two guns. One was charging, the other firing. The one who was firing had been stooping to aim from behind the flower-pots. Resting the trigger a minute, she lifted her head a little to look at the field of battle.
"Manuela Sancho," I exclaimed, placing my hand upon the head of the heroic girl, "resistance is no longer of any use. The next house is already destroyed by the batteries of San José, and the balls are already beginning to fall upon the roof of this. Let us go."
She took no notice, and went on shooting. At last the house, which was even less able than its neighbor to sustain the shock of the projectiles, quivered as if the earth trembled beneath its foundations. Manuela Sancho threw down her gun. She and the woman who was with her ran into an alcove, where I heard them crying bitterly. Entering, we found the two girls embracing an old crippled woman who was trying to get up from her bed.