Don Juan Martin Puyrredon having procured another horse, rallied yet again a confused crowd of the stragglers and with them made another attempt to take his enemy in flank; but his men no longer followed him with reckless impetuosity; as they saw the gunners again wheel round their pieces to oppose them they turned and fled. Don Juan Martin drew rein within fifty paces of the British bayonets; clenching his hand he raised it and shook it at them in fierce despair, then turned and trotted slowly away. More than one musket came sharply up to the shoulder as he thus defied the soldiery, but the officer in command shouted to them in clear ringing tones:
"Do not shoot him! He is a brave fellow that."
His men echoed his opinion by bursting into a hearty "Hurrah!"
Leaving the artillery and Highlanders in possession of the quinta, the officer in command started at once with the rest of his men in pursuit. Split up into pickets of about twenty men each, they spread rapidly over the open ground beyond the quinta, firing upon any groups who ventured to let them come within range. But the panic-stricken horsemen made no further attempt to molest them. Such groups as attempted to rally, broke up and fled as the infantry came down upon them at the double; in half-an-hour not a single horseman remained in sight.
Some threescore, dead or mortally wounded, lay upon the plain, five dead men lay on the flat roof of the azotea. The British detachment had two men killed and about a dozen wounded.
The lesson which General Beresford had thought it necessary to teach had been taught by one well experienced in such kind of teaching; whether it had been learnt or not was quite another question.
Meantime, as the first volleys of musketry shook their windows, the garrison of the flat-roofed house had whispered one to another that now was their time to escape. In vain Marcelino prayed them to hold out till Don Juan Martin had driven off the English, they had imbibed a wholesome fear of these English and would not listen to him. They opened a side door and rushed forth; the officer in command of the picket which occupied the patio made no attempt to stop them, they ran at once for the trees and were soon safe from all pursuit. All save one, who stood alone in the open doorway, with his arms crossed over his chest and the stump of a broken sword in his hand, listening intently to the sounds of the fierce contention which raged outside, of which he could see nothing from where he stood.
As these sounds died away his lips closed tightly together, and as the ringing sound of a British cheer came to him through the smoke, which was lightly drifting away over the tree-tops, he threw the stump of the broken sword from him and bowed his head as though he resigned himself to some bitter fate.
"Porkey Oosty no va?" said a voice close at hand, speaking in very barbarous Spanish, but yet in words which Marcelino could understand.
He looked round and saw a young English officer standing on the paved causeway which surrounded the house, looking curiously at him.