“Because we Mexicans are too wise. The Americans never can get near the city. Why should we waste any lives on them? Now you come along, gringito.” And Jerry had to go, wild with rage and hot with hopes. The balls from the city and castle were falling 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 the sand would be covered up. Neither man nor beast could face a norther, there in the open where the sand drifted like snow. And the vomito, or yellow fever! Ay de mi! That was worse. It came in the spring as soon as the northers ceased and stayed all summer. Some days and nights it appeared like a yellow mist, rising from the lagoons of the coast and spreading toward the city; men and women and children died by the hundreds, even in the city streets, so that the buzzards feasted on the bodies. The City of the Dead: this was the name for Vera Cruz during the vomito season. Everyone who was able fled to the higher country inland, and stayed there above the vomito fog. Until ten o’clock this night the American boats landed the American soldiers; by token of the twinkling lights and the distant shouts the beach was occupied for a mile of length, and the bivouacs extended back into the dunes. II A SURPRISE FOR VERA CRUZ “Boom!”