Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/365

Rh Morazan's saddle nearly in two. Morazan was routed, pursued so closely that he could not take up his equipage, and hurried on to the plaza, having lost 300 muskets, 400 men killed, wounded, and prisoners, and all his luggage. At ten o'clock his whole force was penned up in the plaza, surrounded by an immense mass of Indian soldiers, and fired upon from all the corners. Manning the parapets and stationing pickets on the roofs of the houses, he kept up a galling fire in return.

Pent up in this fearful position, Morazan had time to reflect. But a year before he was received with ringing of bells, firing of cannon, joyful acclamations, and deputations of grateful citizens, as the only man who could save them from Carrera and destruction. Among the few white citizens in the plaza at the time of the entry of the soldiers was a young man, who was taken prisoner and brought before General Morazan. The latter knew him personally, and inquired for several of his old partisans by name, asking whether they were not coming to join him. The young man answered that they were not, and Morazan and his officers seemed disappointed. No doubt he had expected a rising of citizens in his favour, and again to be hailed as a deliverer from Carrera. In San Salvador I had heard that he had received urgent solicitations to come up; but, whatever had been contemplated, there was no manifestation of any such intention; on the contrary, the hoarse cry was ringing in his ears, "Muera el tyranno! Muera el General Morazan!" Popular feeling had undergone an entire revolution, or else it was kept down by the masses of Indians who came in from the villages around to defend the city against him.

In the meantime the fire slackened, and at twelve o'clock it died away entirely; but the plaza was strewed with dead, dense masses choked up the streets, and at the corners of the plaza the soldiers, with gross ribaldry and jests, insulted and jeered at Morazan and his men. The firing ceased only from want of ammunition, Carrera's stock having been left in Morazan's possession. Carrera, in his eagerness to renew the attack, sat down to make cartridges with his own hands.

The house of Mr. Hall, the British vice-consul, was on one of the sides of the plaza. Mr. Chatfield, the consul-general, was at Escuintla, about twelve leagues distant, when intelligence was received of Morazan's invasion. He mounted his horse, rode up to the city, and hoisted the English flag on Mr. Hall's house, to Morazan's soldiers the most conspicuous object on the plaza. Carrera himself was hardly more obnoxious to them than Mr. Chatfield. A picket of soldiers was stationed on the roof of the house, commanding the plaza on the one side, and the courtyard on the other. Orellana, the former minister of war, was on the roof, and cut into the staff with his sword, but