All at once, and at the moment when the joy was attaining its paroxysm, several rounds of artillery were heard, followed by a well-sustained musketry fire. As if by magic the bull was driven back to the torril; the soldiers scattered about the circus leapt into the ring, and becoming actors instead of spectators, drew up in good order, and levelled their muskets at the occupiers of the galleries and boxes, who remained motionless with terror, for they did not understand what was going on.
A door opened, and twenty bandsmen, followed by eight officers, and escorted by a dozen soldiers, entered the ring, and began beating the drums. It was a governmental bando. So soon as silence was restored martial law was proclaimed, and sentence of outlawry passed on General Don Sebastian Guerrero and his adherents, who had just raised the standard of revolt, and pronounced against the established government.
The crowd listened to the bando in a stupor which was heightened by the fact that with each moment the firing became sharper, and the artillery discharges shook the air at more rapid intervals.
Mexico was once again the prey of one of those scenes of murder and carnage which, since the Proclamation of Independence, has too often stained her streets and squares with blood.
The President was on horseback in the centre of the arena, sending off orders, listening to messages, or detaching reinforcements wherever they were wanted. The circus was converted into the headquarters of the army of order, and the spectators, although allowed to depart after some arrests had been effected among them, remained trembling in their seats, preferring not to venture into the streets, which had been converted into real battlefields.
Still the pronunciamiento was assuming formidable proportions. General Guerrero had not played for so heavy a stake without trying to secure to his side all probable chances of success; and that success would most ably have crowned his efforts, had he not been betrayed. For, in spite of all the precautions taken by the government, the affair had been begun so warmly and resolutely that, after the contest had continued for three hours, it was impossible to say on which side the advantage would remain.
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
THE PRONUNCIAMIENTO.
In any revolution, the insurgents have always an immense advantage over the government they are attacking, from the fact that, as they hold together, know their numbers, and act in accordance with a long worked out plan, they are not only cognizant of what they want, but also, whither they are proceeding. The government, on the other hand, however well informed it may be, and however well on its guard, is obliged to remain for a considerable length of time in an attitude of armed expectation, without knowing whence the danger that menaces it will come, or the strength of the rebellion it will have to combat.