Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/347

Rh 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-bye, 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 loot-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 servant-woman (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 bullet-proof, 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,