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told us that they purposed going to Guatimala; but 1 shrank from them instinctively, eluded their questions as to when we intended to set out, and I afterward heard that they were natives of the town, and had been compelled to leave it on account of their notorious characters as assassins. One of them, as we thought, in a mere spirit of bravado, provoked a quarrel with the aiddecamp, strutted before the quartel, and in the hearing of all said that they were under no man's orders; they only joined General Figoroa to please themselves, and would do as they thought proper. In the mean time, a few of the townsmen who had nothing to lose, among them an alguazil, finding there was no massacring, had returned or emerged from their hiding-places, and we procured a guide to be ready the moment General Figoroa should return, went back to the house, and to our surprise found the widow Padilla there. She had been secreted somewhere in the neighbourhood, and had heard, by means of an old womanservant, of the general's breakfasting with us, and our intimacy with him. We inquired for her daughters' safety, but not where they were, for we had already found that we could answer inquiries better when we knew nothing.

We waited till four o'clock, and hearing nothing of General Figoroa, made up our minds that we should not get off till evening. We therefore strolled up to the extreme end of the street, where Figoroa had entered, and where stood the ruins of an old church. We sat on the foundation walls and looked through the long and desolate street to the plaza, where were a few stacks of muskets and some soldiers. All around were mountains, and among them rose the beautiful and verdant Volcano of Chingo. While sitting there two

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women ran past, and telling us that the soldiers were returning in that direction, hid themselves among the ruins. We turned down a road and were intercepted on a little eminence, where we were obliged to stop and look down upon them as they passed. We saw that they were irritated by an unsuccessful day's work, and that they had found agua ardiente, for many of them were drunk. A drummer on horseback, and so tipsy that he could hardly sit, stopped the line to glorify General Carrera. Very soon they commenced the old touchstone, "Viva Carrera!" and one fellow, with the strap of his knapsack across his naked shoulders, again stopped the whole line, and turning round with a ferocious expression, said, "You are counting us, are you?"

We disappeared, and by another street got back to the house. We waited a moment, and, determined to get out of the town and sleep at the first hacienda on the road, left the house to go again to General Figoroa for his despatches; but before reaching it we saw new confusion in the plaza, a general remounting and rushing to arms. As soon as General Figoroa saw us, he spurred his horse down the street to meet us, and told us, in great haste, that General Morazan was approaching and almost upon the town. He had that moment received the news, and was going out to attack him. He had no time to sign the despatches, and while he was speaking the lancers galloped past. He shook hands, bade us good-by, hasta luego (until presently), asked us to call upon Carrera in case we did not see him again, and dashing down the line, put himself at the head of the lancers. The foot-soldiers followed in single file on a run, carrying their arms as was most convenient. In the hurry and excitement we forgot ourselves till we heard some flattering epithets

and saw two fellows shaking their muskets at us with the expression of fiends; but, hurried on by those behind, they cried out ferociously, "Estos picaros otro vez," "Those rascals again." The last of the line had hardly disappeared before we heard a volley of musketry, and in a moment fifty or sixty men left in the plaza snatched up their arms and ran down a street opening from the plaza. Very soon a horse without a rider came clattering down the street at full speed; three others followed, and in five minutes we saw thirty or forty horsemen, with our friend Figoroa at their head, dash across the street, all running for their lives; but in a few moments they rallied and returned. We walked toward the church, to ascend the steeple, when a sharp volley of musketry rolled up the street on that side, and before we got back into the house there was firing along the whole length of the street. We knew that a chance shot might kill a non-combatant, and secured the doors and windows; but finally, as the firing was sharp, and the balls went beyond us and struck the houses on the opposite side, with an old servantwoman (what had become of the widow I do not know), we retired into a small room on the courtyard, with delightful walls, and a door three inches thick and bulletproof, shutting which, and in utter darkness, we listened valiantly. Here we considered ourselves out of harm's way, but we had serious apprehensions for the result. The spirit on both sides was to kill; giving quarter was not thought of. Morazan's party was probably small, but they would not be taken without a desperate fight; and from the sharpness of the firing and the time occupied, there was probably a sanguinary affair. Our quondam friends, roused by bloodshed, wounds, and loss of companions, without any one to control them,

APPEARANCE

OF MORAZAN.

85

would be very likely to connect "those rascals" with the arrival of Morazan. I will not say that we wished they might all be killed, but we did wish that their bad blood might be let out, and that was almost the same thing. In fact, I did most earnestly hope never to see their faces again. I preferred being taken by any roving band in the country rather than by them, and never felt more relieved than when we heard the sound of a bugle. It was the Morazan blast of victory; and, though sounding fiercely the well-known notes of "degollar, degollar," "cutthroat, cutthroat," it was music to our ears. Very soon we heard the tramp of cavalry, and leaving our hiding-place, returned to the sala, and heard a cry of "Viva la Federacion!" This was a cheering sound. It was now dark. We opened the door an inch or two, but a lancer riding by struck it open with his lance, and asked for water. We gave him a large calabash, which another took from his hands. We threw open the door, and kept two large calabashes on the sill; and the soldiers, as they passed, took a hasty draught. Asking a question of each, we learned that it was General Morazan himself, with the survivers of his expedition against Guatimala. Our house was well known; many of the officers inquired for the family, and an aiddecamp gave notice to the servant-woman that Morazan himself intended stopping there. The soldiers marched into the plaza, stacked their arms, and shouted "Viva Morazan." In the morning the shout was "Viva Carrera!" None cried "Viva la Patria!"

There was no end to our troubles. In the morning we surrendered to one party, and in the evening were captured out of their hands by another; probably before daylight Carrera would be upon us. There was

only one comfort: the fellows who had broken our rest the night before, and scared the inhabitants from their homes, were now looking out for lodgings in the mountains themselves. I felt sorry for Figoroa and his aid, and, on abstract principles, for the killed. As for the rest, I cared but little what became of them.

In a few moments a party of officers came down to our house. For six days they had been in constant flight through an enemy's country, changing their direction to avoid pursuit, and only stopping to rest their horses. Entering under the excitement of a successful skirmish, they struck me as the finest set of men I had seen in the country. Figoroa had come upon them so suddenly, that General Morazan, who rode at the head of his men, had two bullets pass by his head before he could draw his pistol, and he had a narrower escape than in the whole of his bloody battle in Guatimala. Colonel Cabañas, a small, quiet, gentlemanly man, the commander of the troops massacred in Honduras, struck the first blow, broke his sword over a lancer, and, wresting the lance out of its owner's hands, ran it through his body, but was wounded himself in the hand. A tall, gay, rattling young man, who was wiping warm blood from off his sword, and drying it on his pockethandkerchief, mourned that he had failed in cutting off their retreat; and a quiet middle-aged man, wiping his forehead, drawled out, that if their horses had not been so tired they would have killed every man. Even they talked only of killing; taking prisoners was nev er thought of. The verb matar, to kill, with its inflexions, was so continually ringing in my ears that it made me nervous. In a few minutes the widow Padilla, who, I am inclined to believe, was secreted somewhere in the neighbourhood, knowing of General Mora

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