"What are you going to do with that glass?" inquired Don Bias.
"Why, I never go to the theatre without my glass—not even to a bull-fight. Should I have forgotten it when I am come to secure the best place for seeing the gigantic efforts of the combatants on both sides."
The future captain seemed to look with an eye of envy upon the place in which I found myself in such perfect security. I could clearly discern from my terrace even the quadrangle of the palace and the adjacent streets. The national flag floated no longer from the roof of that building, and the president found himself a prisoner in his own abode. At the opposite angle of the building, through the grated windows of the prison, which formed part of the palace, I espied the heads of the prisoners, who were furious with excitement. The troops which had remained faithful to the cause of Bustamente were ranged upon the grand square, officers went and came, giving their orders, and cannon-wheels rumbled upon the pavement, while the distant booming of the heavy guns, and the white smoke which rose in dense massy clouds behind the houses, showed that, in those streets which were hidden from my view, a fierce engagement was going on. I could make out but imperfectly the places where the combats were raging; but, according to Mexican tactics, the same scenes were repeated on the tops of the houses. The fighting on the terraces was on the same plan as that pursued in the streets below. The roof of the palace was covered with soldiers, forming part of the garrison that had been brought over by Santa Anna. These men kept up an incessant fire against the troops of the colonel, thus placed between two fires; but the close proximity of Don Blas's detachment gave him the most serious alarm.
The lieutenant was just about to command his party to fire again, and probably with more success than on the two former occasions, when the tall colonel advanced to the edge of the azotea to hold a parley; and, forming a kind of speaking trumpet with his two hands, cried out, "Muchachos! don't you see how shabby it is of you to fire upon us in this way? Caramba! you show little discretion by it. Is it not too bad for two to fight against one? All brave men think so."
"Traitor!" cried the angry lieutenant.
"Traitor! traitor! You are a pretty fellow, on my word, my dear Don Blas! One does not become a traitor for mere pleasure; and your notions of politics appear to be behind the age. Ah! have you got cavalry on the roof?" cried he, pleasantly, observing the gleam of the asistente's helmet in the sun.
"You have made my soldiers the most insulting proposals," Don Blas replied.
"That's true," answered the colonel, "I did. I have not offered them a reasonable price for their cartridges, but I am ready to atone for my fault."
A general hurrah, which burst from the lieutenant's men, showed that he was regaining the ground he had lost.
"The colonel is no bad reasoner, it appears to me," said I to Don Blas.