‘Dear, dear,’ muttered the General; ‘too quick, my friend, too quick!’
For Conyngham was already among the crowd, which broke and surged back towards the Cathedral. He paused for a moment to draw his sword out of a dark form that lay upon the ground, as a cricketer draws a stump. He had, at all events, remembered the point. The troopers swept across the square like a broom, sending the people as dust before them, and leaving the clean, moonlit square behind. They also left behind one or two shadows, lying stark upon the around. One of these got upon its knees and crawled painfully away, all one-sided, like a beetle that has been trodden underfoot. Those watching from the windows saw with a gasp of horror that part of him—part of an arm—had been left behind, and a sigh of relief went up when he stopped crawling and lay quite still.
The troopers were now retreating slowly towards the Calle de la Ciudad.
‘Be careful, Conyngham,’ shouted the General from the balcony. ‘They will return.’
And as he spoke a rattling fire was opened upon them from the far corner of the square, where the crowd had taken refuge in the opening of the Calle del Arco. Immediately, the people, having noted that the troopers were few in number, charged down upon them. The men fought in line, retreating step by step, their swords gleaming in the moonlight. Estella, hearing footsteps in the room behind her, turned in time to see her father disappearing through the doorway. Concepçion Vara, coatless, as he loved to work, his white shirtsleeves fluttering as his arm swung, had now joined the troopers, and was fighting by Conyngham’s side.
Estella and Julia were out on the balcony now, leaning over and forgetting all but the breathless interest of battle. Concha stood beside them, muttering and cursing like any soldier.
They saw Vincente appear at the corner of the Calle de la Ciudad and throw away his scabbard as he ran.
‘Now, my children!’ he cried in a voice that Estella had never heard before, which rang out across the square, and was answered by a yell that was nothing but a cry of sheer delight. The crowd swayed back as if before a gust of wind, and the General, following it, seemed to clear a space for himself as a reaper clears away the standing corn before him. It was, however, only for a moment. The crowd surged back, those in front against their will, and on to the glittering steel—those behind shouting encouragement.
‘Name of God!’ shouted Concha, and was gone. They saw him a minute later appear in the square, having thrown aside his cassock. He made a strange lean figure of a man with his knee-breeches and dingy purple stockings, his grey flannel shirt, and the moonlight shining on his tonsured head. He fought without skill, and heedless of danger, swinging a great sword that he had picked up from the hand of a fallen trooper, and each blow that he got home killed its victim. The metal of the man had suddenly shown itself after years of suppression. This, as Vincente had laughingly said, was no priest, but a soldier. Concepçion, in the thick of it, using the knife now with a deadly skill, looked over his shoulder and laughed.
Suddenly the crowd swayed. The faint sound of a distant bugle came to the ears of all.