Martiñez, shrugged his shoulders.
“Impossible,” he said, drearily.
“Wait. Pendleton, the American minister, is dean of the corps. Carter here is practically a stranger in town these days, and he’s got nerve. I know him. As an American, he might possibly make it to the legation. Carter, will you try to get through the streets to the American Legation? Will you?”
Saxon had leaped forward. He liked the direct manner of this man, and the legation was his destination.
“It’s a hundred to one shot, Carter, that ye can’t do it.” Murphy’s voice, in its excitement, dropped into brogue. “Will ye try? Will ye tell him to git th’ diplomats togither, and ask an armistice? Ye know our countersign, ‘Vegas y Libertad.’”
But Saxon had already started off in the general direction of the main plaza. For two squares, he met no interference. For two more, he needed no other passport than the countersign, then, as he turned a corner, it seemed to him that he plunged at a step into a reek of burnt powder and burning houses. There was a confused vista of men in retreat, a roar that deafened him, and a sudden numbness. He dropped to his knees, attempted to rise to his feet, then seemed to sink into a welcome sleep, as he stretched comfortably at length on the pavement close to a wall, a detachment of routed insurrectos sweeping by him in full flight.
CHAPTER XIII
The passing of the fugitive insurrectos; their mad turning at bay for one savage rally; their wavering and breaking; their disorganized stampede spurred on by a decimating fire and the bayonet’s point: these were all incidents of a sudden squall that swept violently through the narrow street, to leave it again empty and quiet. It was empty except for the grotesque shapes that stretched in all the undignified awkwardness of violent death and helplessness, feeding thin lines of red that trickled between the cobblestones. It was silent except for echoes of the stubborn fighting coming from the freer spaces of the plazas and alamedas, where the remnants of the invading force clung to their positions behind improvised barricades with the doggedness of men for whom surrender holds no element of hope or mercy.