There was great ferment throughout the city all that day. It soon became generally known that the partidarios under Don Juan Martin Puyrredon had suffered a severe defeat at the hands of the English, but instead of losing heart at the news the townsmen murmured among themselves vows of vengeance, and the name of Liniers passed frequently from lip to lip; in him was now all their hope. Late in the afternoon many of them were gathered together in the dining-room of Don Gregorio Lopez. Don Carlos Evaña had made another effort to bring them to look favourably upon the English; the only answers he received were fierce threats and upbraidings: the threats he treated with contempt, the upbraidings he suffered in silence. "Take my advice, Don Carlos," said Don Gregorio Lopez, "leave off talking to us in that strain; your ideas are all very well in your study, here they are quite out of place. However ready we might have been to accept the friendship of the English, the time has now gone by. The sword is drawn, and we have thrown away the scabbard." "There is war between us now, and war to the knife," said Don Isidro Lorea, who was one of those present. "They have attacked us, and have murdered our brothers with their cannon; this question can now only be settled by fire and blood." "It is folly to talk to us of Spanish tyranny," said another. "Do the Spaniards ever send their men to shoot us and bayonet us when we are asleep? On the contrary, the Spaniards have often shed their blood in our defence, they have made war upon the Indians for us, and their ships destroyed the English pirates who infested the Parana in the days of our grandfathers." "I have been at Perdriel to-day," said another. "I helped to put the dead into the carts we sent out for them. For each dead man I touched I vowed that I will kill an Englishman. Wait until Liniers comes; if he is strong enough, then we will show them the mercy they showed to our countrymen to-day; those of them who can swim off to their ships may escape, the rest die. If he is not strong enough for them, then we will kill them all the same, but more slowly, with the knife." "If you had listened to me before, this disaster would never have happened," said Evaña. "The partidarios were armed, therefore their encampment was a challenge. General Beresford does not make war upon peaceable citizens." "Basta, Don Carlos," said Don Gregorio. "In attacking the partidarios he has made war upon us. We are men; if we cannot fight him we know at least how to die with honour. Come with me, I have something to say to you in private." Don Gregorio took Evaña with him into a smaller room, and locking the door, he seated himself. "Do you know what these say of you?" said he. "Sufficient evil, I make no doubt," answered Evaña. "More than sufficient, my friend. They say you have reasons for thus speaking in favour of the English."