Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/681

Rh a body, composed mainly of cavalry, was out of the question, and a siege within the convent buildings equally forbidding; so Mina proposed an attack upon the foe before it should form. Encouraged by previous successful skirmishes with superior forces, the men responded eagerly. A part remained at the hacienda with the baggage, and the rest marched forth under their general and his second, Colonel Young, to the number of 172, to meet a body ten times stronger, a large proportion of which ranked as veterans used to victory. The royalist guerrillas opened the engagement, and then came the cavalry with a rush, that threatened to overwhelm the little band. Fortunately a few well directed volleys arrested the movement, but the rear had come up and the odds appearing so enormous Mina prepared to fall back toward the hacienda.

This stirred the Spaniards to fresh efforts, for which a galling fire prepared the way by creating havoc in the narrow ranks, while the cavalry wheeled round them, and the infantry moved forward en masse to closer quarters. At this critical moment, when the struggle seemed reduced to selling their lives as dearly as possible, Mina gave his men the order to charge. One blinding volley was delivered, and then with ringing hurrahs they leaped from out the smoke with gleaming bayonets. The startled infantry broke and fled, and the cavalry, partaking of the confusion, fell back to increase the confusion. On came the doughty band, a narrow-bounded cyclone, resistless in its sweep, with cheers that rolled before them, and bringing quick answers in shrieks of fear and pain. The disorder had swollen into a panic, lending wings to feet that halted not for leagues, the men meanwhile regardless of the sharp lances with which Armiñan at