Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/66

 The Paixhan guns were large pieces that threw shells in a line, instead of solid shot or high-sailing bombs like the mortars.

"Boom!" from the castle; and in a moment, "Boom!" from the thickets of the dunes. The smoke jetted angrily; the people imagined that they could see brush and trees and bodies flying through the air; but just how much damage was being done no one might say, because most of the American army was out of sight, concealed in the wilderness of the jungle.

General Morales, commanding the city and castle, had issued a proclamation calling upon the soldiers and citizens to rally for the defense. All this day the American boats, large and small, plied back and forth between the fleet and the shore, out of range, bringing in horses and mules and cannon and supplies; when the cannon had been landed, soldiers and sailors fell to like ants and helped the long teams drag them across the beach, into the sand hills. The larger part of the army had been swallowed by the chaparral; but now and again a column of blue-uniformed men could be sighted, winding through a cleared spot, as if gradually encircling the city on the land side.

All day the city forts and outworks and the castle pitched round-shot and shell into the dunes. There were several little battles when the Mexican lancers and infantry outposts met the American advance. A number of wounded Mexican soldiers were carried in; but the American flags kept coming on, bobbing here and there, bound inland.

"To-morrow it will blow," the weather prophets