"You must be famished, Señor," he said. "You have had nothing but a bite and a sup all day. Here is the café of my friend Jorge Arcos; let us enter. When we have eaten and drunk it will be time to seek the ramparts."
Jack was nothing loth. In a few minutes he was seated amid a crowd of ardent Saragossans, whose blackened features and soiled garments bespoke the part they had played in the defence of their city. Jorge Arcos himself, a robust and lusty Spaniard, attended to Jack's wants when he had learnt from Tio Jorge that the young Señor was an English officer who had done good work that day, and been entrusted by Palafox with the Santa Engracia command. The big host, as well as the miscellaneous company in the room, looked somewhat askance at the weird figure of Pepito, who had closely followed his master. His garb showed him to be one of the despised and outcast gitanos; but on Jack's explaining that the boy had been of service to him, Arcos shrugged, and brought him some food and diluted wine, which the hungry little fellow despatched with gusto.
As he ate, Jack fell into conversation with his host, and showed a curiosity to learn something of the earlier history of the siege. The mere suggestion was enough to set the man's tongue wagging. He evidently loved the sound of his own voice, and he owed indeed much of his popularity with the citizens to his rough-and-ready eloquence.
"A remarkable siege, you say, Señor?" he said. "It is, in truth; never was such a siege since the world began! And 'tis not the first time the French pack of wolves has come to eat us. Last year, by the favour of Our Lady of the Pillar, we escaped their greedy jaws; and now also again they shall rue the day they came a-hunting. For six weeks we have withstood them; 'tis six weeks since they began to throw their bombs and balls into our midst. Aha! and on the second day after, they sent a man to summon us to surrender. Surrender! Little they knew Don José Palafox, little they knew the hearts of our people—of Tio Jorge here, and Tio Marin, of the padres Don Basilio and Santiago Sass and Consolacion; aye, and of our noble ladies and of our poor folks such as I myself. Surrender! Why, our people well-nigh tore the French messenger in pieces! We knew they were coming to invest us; did they think we should open our gates or that our walls would fall flat as the walls of Jericho? Por Dios!"
He uttered a scornful guffaw, and shouts of approval broke from the crowd.
"No, no. We had warning; the people from the countryside came flocking in—workers in olive groves and vineyards, potters from the villages, swineherds and muleteers—and Don José gave them each his task, and with our own people they toiled night and day to make our city strong. Men and women and children, sixty thousand of us, we wrought upon the ramparts. Some carried earth in baskets, others plied the spade, others went into the outskirts with picks and axes, and levelled houses and orchards until, for half a mile round, the country was as bare as my table here, a level waste on which no enemy could find a wall or tree to shelter him. Thus we strengthened our defences, building bastions and raising mounds, till the whole city was encircled with strong ramparts from the Ebro to the Huerba.
"And all this time our people were gathering food—great stores of corn and maize, oil and fish; and some were making powder and bullets, and others were building barriers across the streets with timber and sand-bags, so that if the accursed French did break through our walls we could still fight from street to street, as you have seen to-day, Señor."
"Yes, but they are gaining ground; how can we hold out longer, Jorge Arcos?" said a voice in the crowd.
Arcos glared around and smote upon the table.
"Where is that coward?" he cried passionately. "Where is he? For whom does the gibbet stand in the Coso? Is it not there for cowards, and weaklings, and traitors, and all who talk of surrender? Hold out longer! We have only begun. The French have got in here and there—well, what of that? Every house captured costs them a day; and every day brings our triumph nearer. Have we not ample food? Is there a wretch in Saragossa who complains of hunger? Set him before me; let me see his face; he shall prove his words here in my presence, or—" He made a significant gesture, and continued: "No, we are not hungry; we can hold out for months; and meanwhile friends are hastening to our succour. North and south, east and west, armies are collecting. The French shall be hemmed round like pigs for the butcher; the February rains shall descend and flood their trenches; and by the grace of Our Lady of the Pillar we shall be able once again to foil the plans of the Corsican dog, and the men of Aragon will set such an example to the men of Andalusia and Castile, of Leon and Estremadura, of Catalonia and Navarre, that no Frenchman shall be left alive between the mountains and the sea."