partition walls; we tried to learn the intentions of the enemy according to the direction of the blows. At last we noticed that the partition wall was being violently shaken near the very place where we were standing, and we waited fire in the doorway, after heaping up the furniture as a barricade. The French opened a hole, and presently began leaping over beams and broken fragments, showing an intention of driving us from the place. There were twenty of us, fewer of them, and they evidently did not expect to be received in such fashion, and retreated, returning soon with such reinforcement that we were in great danger, and obliged to retire, leaving five comrades behind the furniture, two of them dead. In the narrow passage we ran against a stairway up which we hurried without knowing where we were going, and presently found ourselves in a garret—an admirable position for defence. The stairway was narrow, however, and the Frenchmen who tried to come up it died inevitably. So we remained for some time, prolonging the resistance, and encouraging one another with huzzas and shouts, when the partition at our backs began to resound with loud blows, and we saw immediately that the French, by opening an entrance through there, would catch us between two fires without means of escape. We were now thirteen, as two had fallen in the garret, severely wounded. Tío Garcés, who was in command, shouted furiously: “By heaven, the dogs shall not catch us! There’s a skylight in the roof. Let us go up through it to the tiles of the roof. Go on firing at whoever comes up to try and cut through it! The rest of you enlarge the hole. Away with fear, and viva the Virgin del Pilar!”
It was done as he commanded. This was to be a well-ordered retreat, according to the rules of war; and while part of our army was preventing the onward march of the enemy, the rest were occupied in facilitating the retreat. This able plan was put into execution with feverish activity, and very soon the hole of escape was large enough for three men to pass through at once, without the French gaining a single step during the time that we were employed in this way. We quickly got out on the roof. We were now nine. Three had been left in the garret, and another was