Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/63

 short; the patrol vessels and the soldiers and sailors paid no attention to them; but from all the ranches and fields and huts outside the city walls the people were hastening in, for protection. This was another sight: those men, women and children, carrying bundles, and driving laden donkeys, and chattering, threatening, bragging and laughing.

Hustling on, Jerry and the two Manuels joined with the rest, crossing the open strip a half a mile wide, bordering the walls, and pushing in through the gate on this side, named the Gate of Mexico and commanded by batteries.

Inside the city there were hubbub and excitement. The broad paved streets of the down-town among the two-story stone buildings were crowded as on a feast day. Bugles were pealing, drums were beating, soldiers in the bright blue and white of the infantry and the red and green of the artillery were marching hither thither, lancers in their red and yellow clattered through, while the roof-tops and the church belfries above swarmed with gazers.

Nobody showed much fear.

"Wait, until the cannon get the range."

"Or until the northers bury the gringos in the sand!"

"And then the vomito, the yellow fever! That is our best weapon."

"Indeed, yes. All we Vera Cruzanos need do is to wait."

The northers, as everybody should know, were the terrific winds that blew in the winter and early spring; they blew so fiercely, from the gulf and a clear sky, that anyone lying for a few moments in