At the end of the covered way leading to the Portillo Gate Jack found Tio Jorge giving instructions to a group of armed citizens, who went off one by one on various errands. Seizing a favourable opportunity, Jack went up to the big Spaniard, and in a few rapid words acquainted him with his own position and intentions. Jorge scanned him for a moment with quick, penetrating glance, then said: "Señor will want a musket. There is a stand of arms at the corner yonder." In two minutes Jack, armed with a musket of British make—one of those opportunely thrown into the town by Colonel Doyle the day before the siege opened,—was hastening along by the side of Tio Jorge into the city. On entering the streets, the Spaniard summoned to join him small bodies of citizens who were gathered at certain points to act as reinforcements and reserves. Soon he was at the head of a considerable troop, all of the artisan class, for in these days of stress every able-bodied man in the city was transformed into a fighter. As they ran, their ears were deafened by a loud explosion on the right. The air was darkened with dust; broken slates and stones came hurtling down upon their heads; but the eager citizens pressed on with an indifference that showed how much accustomed they were to such incidents. "A block of houses blown up between here and the Santa Engracia convent," said Tio Jorge in answer to a question of Jack’s. "But that is not our business. The French will hold the ruins, but they’ll get no farther. Our men will beat them back. ’Tis more dangerous towards San Agustin. The French have gained more there in this one day than in weeks on the Santa Engracia side. Hombres," he cried to the men with him, "hasten, hasten! The French are over the barricades, and we must drive them out at all costs." They ran on. Even in the rush and excitement Jack was struck by the scenes of horror in the streets. At one point two corpses swung slowly on gibbets erected by the door of a church. Tio Jorge pointed to one of them, a look of grim exultation on his face. "He was my school-fellow," he said, "and my friend; but I hanged him. So perish all who falter and counsel surrender!" Wounded men were being carried to the hospitals by women; some were limping or crawling with shattered limbs and ghastly faces. Women and children ran hither and thither, some carrying goods from houses threatened by the enemy, others food and ammunition for the fighters. Though many of them bore only too manifest signs of sickness and privation, they all seemed animated by the same spirit of fierce determination, and a gleam lit up their worn features whenever Tio Jorge, as he passed, threw them a word of encouragement.