The night was dark and rainy; the west wind howled furiously in the hills near the town, and from time to time a dazzling flash rent the horizon, and preluded the rolling of the thunder which was blended with the sharp sinister crash of the musketry fire. The drums beat, and bugles brayed; the churches were crowded with women and children, who, piously kneeling on the slabs, prayed God, the Virgin, and the saints to come to their assistance.
The tumult was frightful. The cries of the wounded, the hurrahs of the combatants, and above all, the war yells of the Indians, who bounded like panthers upon the last defenders of the town. All this formed a din rendered more horrible still by the sight of the fire which was beginning to tinge the sky with a red and ill-omened glare.
Tahi-Mari, naked to the waist, his hair in disorder, and his features contrasted by the thirst for carnage and destruction, held an axe in one hand and a torch in the other. He was seen rushing at the head of a band of veteran redskins into the thickest of the Spanish battalions, cleaving a bloody track for himself—felling and pitilessly massacring all those who dared to oppose his fury. Santiago was one immense crater—the fire embraced the whole city; its devouring flames had dissipated the darkness, and spread around a light which allowed the dark outlines of the combatants to be seen as they struggled with the sublime energy of despair.
A countless swarm of Indians had invaded the town, and fighting was going on on all sides. The Spaniards disputed the ground inch by inch, and the streets, the squares, and the houses were the scene of a horrible massacre. Tahi-Mari, ever in the first rank of the Indians, excited his soldiers by his shouts and example. All was lost, and the Chilian capital had at length fallen into the power of the Araucanos. The burning buildings fell in with a crash, burying beneath their ruins assailants and assailed. The churches were given up to pillage, while the women and girls, torn half naked from their houses or from the foot of the altar, endured the last violence which their cruel victors inflicted upon them.
All hope of flight or rescue seemed annihilated; the redskins, drunk with carnage and spirits, rushed furiously upon the relics of the despairing population. It was at this moment that the President of the Republic, followed by a few devoted soldiers, formed a hollow square on the Plaza de la Merced, in the centre of which he placed all the aged persons, women, and children, who had escaped the fury of the Indians.
Suddenly loud shouts were heard, and three heavy bodies of men, commanded by Don Juan, General Pedro Sallazar, and Leon Delbès, debouched from three different streets. In the centre of the one commanded by Leon, was old Don Juan carried on a litter, with Maria and Inez by her side. Leon placed the persons whom he had saved in the centre of the square formed by the President, and called on Don Juan and Don Pedro's detachments.
"Now," he cried to the President of the Republic, "fall back, while we support you."
"Do so," he answered.
And the square fell back with all those whom it contained. "Forward!" Leon shouted, "kill! kill!"
And the three bands, facing the startled Indians, threw themselves upon them and commenced a frightful butchery. The square De la Merced was literally encumbered with combatants. The Moluchos, incessantly pushed forward by their comrades, who arrived to their help, fell impassively beneath the lances and sabres of the Spaniards, who protected the flight of the President as he retired and took in his charge all those persons incapable of bearing, arms. The fugitives soon reached the city gates.