Page:Vol 4 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/688

672 sub-inspector of troops, and the highest military officer in the country, took command, with supreme control of the provinces embracing the field of action. A few months earlier such concentration of soldiers would have been impossible, and in that case Mina might have gained a speedy triumph by combining with Victoria, Teran, and Guerrero.

The royalists received about this time crumbs of comfort in the fall of Soto la Marina. Arredondo had presented himself before the adobe fort on June 10th, with about 1,600 men. Water was cut off, and soon the tottering walls began to crumble under the heavy firing. Death and desertion had made sad inroads on the garrison, yet Colonel Sardá remained resolute as ever, cheering the famished defenders, and supplying the deficiency of hands by distributing a large number of extra fire-arms with which he effectively repelled the approaches of the startled besiegers. Occasionally a brave woman would rush through the shower of bullets to the stream and bring a momentary relief to the parched lips which swore to die rather than surrender. Finally Sardá was persuaded to accept honorable terms; but imagine the mingled rage and wonder of Arredondo when he saw marching forth before his imposing army thirty-seven cadaverous, hunger-pinched men. He dared not, in view of his heavy losses, sustain the favorable offers made to this handful, and the viceroy, ignoring the capitulation, had them sent to the dungeons of San Juan de Ulúa, and subsequently to interior fortresses in Spain, to endure the most atrocious sufferings incident to a lingering death.