“No, here is where I want to be. But, Señor de Araceli, if I keep on bleeding, where the devil is all this blood going? It seems to me as if my legs are stuffed with cotton. I am falling to the ground like an empty bag.”
He made tremendous efforts of endurance, but almost lost consciousness, more from the serious nature of his wound, than merely from loss of blood, after being without food and sleep, and in such trouble during these past days. Although he begged us to leave him there against the wall, so that he should not miss a single detail of the battle, we carried him to his lodging, which was also in the Coso, at the corner of the Calle del Refugio. The family had been installed in an upper room. The house was all full of wounded, and the numbers of bodies deposited there very nearly obstructed the entrance. It was difficult to get through the narrow doorway and the rooms within, because the men who had gone there to die, crowded the place, and it was not easy to distinguish between the living and the dead.
Montoria said, when we entered there, “Don’t carry me upstairs, boys, where my family is. Leave me here below. Here I see a counter which just suits my purpose.”
We put him where he said. This lower story was a shop. Several of the wounded and victims of the epidemic who had died that day were under the counter, and many of the sick were lying upon the infected ground on pieces of cloth.
“Let us see,” he said, “if there is any charitable soul who will try a little to stop the gap where the blood comes out.”
A woman came forward to care for the wounded man. It was Mariquilla Candiola.
“God bless you, child,” said Don José, seeing that she was bringing lint and linen to bandage him. “Enough for now that you patch up this leg a little. I don’t believe there are any bones broken.”
While this was going on, some twenty peasants came into the house to fire from the windows upon the ruins of the hospital.
“Señor de Araceli, are you not going on firing? Wait a moment until I get up, for I don’t seem able to walk alone. I command you to fire from the window. That’s a good shot. Don’t let them have time to breathe over there at the hospital. Look here, lass, make haste! Haven’t you a knife? It would be a good thing to cut off this piece of flesh that’s hanging. How goes it, Señor de Araceli? Are we going to win?”
“It’s going all right,” I answered from the window. “They are falling back at the hospital. San Francisco is a bone that is a little hard to pick.”
Mariquilla, meanwhile, was looking fixedly at Montoria, and following his instructions in caring for him with much solicitude and deftness.
“You are a jewel, child,” said my friend. “It seems to me that I can scarcely feel your hands upon my wound. But what makes you look at me so much? Does my face look like a monkey’s? Let’s see, is it finished? I will try to get up. But I am not able to sit up. What sort of weak water is this in my veins! Porr—I was going to say—I don’t seem able to correct that bad habit! Señor de Araceli, I don’t do very well with my soul. How goes the battle?”
“Señor, a thousand marvels! Our valiant peasants are working wonders!”
Here a wounded officer was brought in for whom a ligature was wanted.
“Everything goes as we would desire it to go,” he said to us. “They will not take San Francisco. Those in the hospital have been repulsed three times. But the most wonderful thing, señors, took place beside San Diego. I saw the French gain the orchard joining the house Los Duendes, where they were met by the bayonets of those brave soldiers of Orihuela commanded by Pino-Hermoso, who not only dislodged them, but they say killed a lot of them, and took thirty prisoners.”
“I wish to go there! Viva the battalion of Orihuela! Viva the Marquis of Pino-Hermoso!” exclaimed Don José de Montoria, with tremendous fervor. “Señor de Araceli, let us go there! Lift me up. Isn’t there a pair of crutches there? Señors, my legs have given out. But I will go there in spirit. My heart is there. Goodbye, child, beautiful little nurse. But what makes you look at me so? Do you know me? I think I have seen your face somewhere, but I don’t remember where.”
“I also have seen you once, only once,” answered Mariquilla, tactfully, “and God grant you do not remember me!”
“I shall not forget your kindness,” said Montoria. “You seem to be a good girl, and very pretty, that’s sure. I am very grateful, most grateful. But bring those crutches or a stick, Señor de Araceli. Give me your arm. What is this which goes back and forth before my eyes? Let us go over there and drive the French out of the hospital.”
Dissuading him from his rash idea of going out, I started alone, when I heard an explosion so loud that no words have power to describe it. It seemed as if the whole city had been thrown into the air by the eruption of an immense volcano from beneath its foundations. All the houses trembled. The sky was obscured by an immense cloud of smoke and dust, and along the whole length of the street we saw pieces of wall falling, and shattered fragments, and beams, roofs, tiles, showers of earth, and all sorts of things.
“Holy Virgin del Pilar, save us!” exclaimed Montoria. “It seems as if the whole world has blown up.”
The sick and the wounded were crying out, believing that their last hour had come. We all commended ourselves to God.
“What is it? Is Saragossa still in existence?” one asked.
“Are we blown
