Page:Civilization and barbarism (1868).djvu/306

262 company of mountaineers coming out of the woods hard by, he supposed them to be some of his own troops whom he had disguised as gauchos, and commanded an aide to go and give them the necessary orders. The aide obeyed unwillingly, being somewhat suspicious of the new comers, and as he neared them was instantly shot, while at the same moment Paz was caught in a lasso, thrown from his horse, and was instantly in the hands of his enemies. The army, deprived of the commander whose presence always insured victory, retreated to Tucuman, and sent into the city for the prisoners.

A squadron of cuirassiers had formed in the square at Cordova, in front of the state-prisons, from one of which came frightful groans, breaking the silence of the night, and exciting the compassion even of the oldest veterans. The prisoner of Laguna Larga, the soldier of the War of Independence, was on his knees, under the influence of unmanly fear, groaning and sobbing in the belief that these nocturnal preparations were for his death; the officer who went in search of him found him with a wafer, which he had consecrated, and held in both hands as a protection against his executioners. The prisoner, in his hour of need, had resumed his priestly offices, and the theologians of the university of Cordova had a long discussion upon the efficacy of the consecration of the wafer as performed by him. Being quieted with much difficulty, the miserable man, followed the army to Tucuman, and after the defeat at Ciudadela, he accompanied the fugitives to Bolivia, where they set him at liberty. Here ends one of the most eventful periods in the life of Don Felix, the only one of the trio then alive.