People, furnished with torches, coming from no one knew where, traversed the town in all directions, crying—
"To arms! To arms!"
At these cries, at these lurid flames, which cast ill-omened reflections on the walls, the citizens came in all haste from their houses; the women and children wept and lamented—in a word, the panic had become in a few minutes so general, that the two officers, who, nevertheless, knew the truth, were themselves frightened, and asked themselves if the danger was not, in fact, greater than they had supposed it.
They mounted their horses, that their assistants were holding for them at the door of the duke's house, and set out at full gallop towards the Cabildo.
Notwithstanding the advanced hour—it was beyond midnight—the Cabildo, at the moment when the governor and the Montonero entered it, was invaded by the crowd, and offered a spectacle of disorder and of fear, not less animated and not less noisy than that which they had just seen in crossing the Plaza Mayor.
The two officers were received with cries of joy and protestations of devotion that fear alone could inspire in the greater part of the people present.
The governor had considerable difficulty in re-establishing a little order, and in making himself heard by these people, rendered almost insensible by terror.
But it was in vain that he tried to reassure them in relating simply what had passed; they did not wish to believe him, and he did not succeed in convincing anyone that the danger which they so much feared did not exist.
The tocsin sounded from all the churches; barricades were constructed at the corners of all the streets, which were constantly traversed by armed patrols of the citizens, whilst others bivouacked on the place.
The town at this time offered the aspect of a vast camp. It was useless to try and resist the torrent—the governor understood that. Despairing to re-establish security by ordinary methods, he pretended to give way to the views of the persons who surrounded him, and tried to organise the panic in giving orders for the defence of the city, and in dispatching aides-de-camp in all directions.