Strawbridge was deathly sick. He tottered back to the boudoir and clambered out at the broken window, unopposed. Assailants no longer encircled the palace; they had drained inside. The tumult on the roof was rapidly subsiding. Here and there cries of "Viva Saturnino!" began to sound. Presently a few soldiers came running out of the palace, waving their rifles and shouting, "Viva Saturnino!"
Viva Saturnino! The battle was over.
News of the victory spread through the plaza and the adjoining streets with extraordinary swiftness. Strawbridge could hear cries for Saturnino as they were repeated in every direction—near, far, now from all parts at once—"Viva Saturnino!"
By common concert men and women appeared, coming in from every direction. Crowds might have formed out of the air. They came shouting and huzzaing for victory. They took up the cry, "Liberty! Justice and Saturnino!"
A group of peons began dancing in the evening shadows which fell across the plaza. Some tatterdemalions ran with ropes, lassoed the head of General Fombombo's statue, and began pulling it from its pedestal. The marble seemed to resist. It held out its scroll bearing "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," but at last it swung slowly outward and smashed down on the pavement.
At its fall a ferocious joy-making boiled up in the crowd. Some one lighted a fire in the center of the square, and immediately every one flung the litter from the refugees upon the pyre—broken carts, smashed furniture, rags, all manner of waste. The fire boiled up in a great white smoke, and presently flames began licking through it. The revelers began to sing; half a dozen voices, a score, others and others, until a great sounding chorus roared up from the plaza. Some rimester had improvised the words:
Viva el Coronel Saturnino,
Son of Freedom and Rio Negro!
Save our daughters and our niñas.