We went in.
I was the first man to cross the smashed door.
The interior was dim with powder smoke that almost choked me with its suffocating fumes.
Never mind, we had made a breach through which it could escape readily enough.
Through this haze human figures appeared but dimly, though they loomed up giant-like in size.
“Surrender!” I bawled, in Spanish. “You are brave men, but the day is ours. We would spare your lives! Surrender!”
“Toreado! Toreado!” howled my followers, as they scrambled wildly over the broken door.
That was a shibboleth with which to conjure, now that the revolution had been won, and I was not in the least surprised to hear it echoed by the soldiers of the citadel.
They had done their duty; they had stood by their guns as long as any hope remained, and now that they found themselves up against the inevitable, it was only the part of policy to accept it with a fair degree of equanimity.
So they, too, shouted for the pompous old general, proving that they were as ready to serve him as they had the late president, Salvator.