CHAPTER IV.
Enraged at seeing their blockade evaded by the arrival of Darby's fleet, the Spaniards revenged themselves by directing such a fire upon Gibraltar, from their batteries in the Neutral Ground, as in a short time reduced the town to a mass of ruins. This misfortune was rendered the more intolerable to the besieged, as it came in the moment of exultation and general thanksgiving. While words of congratulation were passing from mouth to mouth, the blow descended, and "turned to groans their roundelay."
The contrast between the elation of the inhabitants when my grandfather entered the Fives' Court, and their universal consternation and despair when he quitted it, was terrible. The crowd that had a few minutes before so smilingly and hopefully entered their homes, now fled from them in terror. Again the streets were thronged by the unhappy people, who began to believe themselves the sport of some powerful and malevolent demon. Whole families, parents, children, and servants, rushed together into the streets, making their way to the south to escape the missiles that pursued them. Some bore pieces of furniture snatched up in haste, and apparently seized because they came first to hand; some took the chairs they had been sitting on; one man my grandfather noticed bearing away with difficulty the leaf of a mahogany table, leaving behind the legs which should have supported it; and a woman had a crying child in one hand, and in the other a gridiron, still reeking with the fat of some meat she had been cooking. Rubbish from the houses began to strew the streets; and here and there a ragged breach in a wall rent by the cannon afforded a strange incongruous glimpse of the room inside, with its mirrors, tables, and drapery, just as the inhabitants left them. Armed soldiers were hastening to their different points of assembly, summoned by bugles that resounded shrilly amid the din, and thrusting their way unceremoniously through the impeding masses of fugitives.
The house of the Jew Lazaro was one of the first that was seriously injured. The blank wall of the great warehouse before mentioned, that faced the street, had, either from age or bad masonry, long before exhibited several cracks. A large segment, bounded by two of these cracks, had been knocked away by a shot, and the superincumbent mass falling in consequence, the great store, and all its hoarded treasures, appeared through the chasm.
The Jew's instincts had, at first, led him to save himself by flight. But, on returning timorously to look after his property, the sight of the ruined wall, and the unprotected hoards on which he had so securely reckoned as the source of wealth, obliterated in his mind, for the time, all sense of personal danger. Seeing a party of soldiers issuing from a wine-house near, he eagerly besought them to assist him in removing his property to a place of safety, promising to reward them largely for their risk and trouble.
One of the soldiers thus appealed to was Mr Bags.
"Ho, ho!" said Mr Bags; "here's a chance—here's a pleasure, comrades. We can help Mr Lazaro, who is always so good to us—this here Jewish gentleman, that gives such liberal prices for our things. Certainly—we'll remove 'em all, and not charge him nothing. Oh—oh—ah!" And, to give point to his irony, Mr Bags distorted his face hideously, and winked upon his friends.
The idea of giving Lazaro any assistance was considered a capital joke, and caused a great deal of mirth as they walked towards the store, to which the Jew eagerly led the way.
"If there's anything good to eat or drink in the store, we may remove some of it, though it won't be on our backs, eh, boys?" said Bags, as he stept in advance, over a heap of rubbish, into the store.
"These first—these, my friends," cried the Jew, going up to a row of barrels, standing a little apart from the crowded masses of articles.