gate at the extremity of the bridge its constructors had placed a tablet with this inscription—
The indestructible redoubt of our Lady of the Pillar. Saragossans! Die for the Virgin del Pilar or conquer!
We had our lodging within the redoubt, and though the place was not altogether bad, we went on poorly enough. The rations were provided by a committee recommended by the military administration; but this committee, to our sorrow, was not able to attend to us properly. By good fortune, and to the honor of that generous people, food was sent to us from the neighboring houses, the best of their provisions; and we were frequently visited by the charitable women, who since the battle of the thirty-first had taken it upon themselves to nurse and care for our poor wounded heroes.
I have not spoken of Pirli. Pirli was a boy from outside the city, a rustic about twenty years of age, and in such jolly condition that the most dangerous situations only moved him to a nervous and feverish joy. I never saw him sad. He met the French singing; and when the bullets whistled past his head, he capered about, making a thousand grotesque gestures, throwing up his hands and fairly dancing. When the fire was thick as hail, he called the bullets “hailstones.” He called the cannonballs “hot cakes;” he called the hand-grenades, “señoras;” and the powder he called “black flour,” using other queer terms which I do not now remember. Pirli, although not at all a serious person, was a charming companion.
I do not know whether I have spoken of Tío Garcés. He was a man of forty-five years, a native of Garrapinillos, very brave, bronzed, sawed-off looking, with limbs of steel; there was no one so active or so imperturbable under fire. He was somewhat talkative, and was a little inclined to be imprudent in his conversation, but with a certain wit in his