ship tossed by a tempest; the wood of the walls was cracking too in a thousand fragments. In short, the place was tumbling down.
“ Cuerno, recuerno! ” exclaimed Uncle Garcés, “what if the house falls down upon us!”
The smoke of the powder prevented us from seeing what was going on without or within.
“To the street! To the street!” cried Pirli, throwing himself out of a window.
“Augustine! Augustine! where art thou?” I called to my friend. But Augustine did not appear. In that moment of alarm, not finding either doorway or ladder to descend, I ran to a window to throw myself out; and the spectacle which met my eyes obliged me to draw back without strength or breath. While the cannons of San José were essaying on the right to bury us in the ruins of the house, and seemed to be accomplishing it without effort, in front of and towards the gardens of San Augustine, the French infantry had succeeded at last in penetrating the breaches, killing those unhappy creatures scarcely to be called men, and finishing those who were already dying, for indeed their desperate agony could not be called life.
From the neighboring alleys came a horrible fire. The cannons of the Calle de Diezma took the place of those of the conquered battery. But the breach taken, the French were securing themselves on the walls. It was impossible for me to feel in my soul a spark of energy on beholding such stupendous disaster.
I fled from the window, terrified—beside myself. A piece of the wall cracked and fell in enormous fragments, and a square window took the shape of an isosceles triangle; through a corner of the roof I could see the sky. Bits of lime and splinters struck me in the face. I ran further in, following others, who were saying, “This way! this way!”