"It is just around there," said the cripple. "You know already that the
French had entangled themselves and stuck fast near the Arch of Cineja.
Holy Virgin del Pilar, but that was where they killed off the French!
The rest of the day was nothing beside it. In the Calle de la Parra
and the Square of Estrevedes, in the Calles de los Urreas, Santa Fe,
and Del Azoque, the peasants cut the French to pieces. The cannonading
and the roar of that day still ring in my ears. The French burned down
the houses that they could not defend, and the Saragossans did the
same. There was firing on every side. Men, women, and children,--it was
enough to have two hands to fight against the enemy. And you did not
see it? You really have seen nothing at all! Well, as I was saying,
Palafox came out of Saragossa towards--"
"That's enough, my friend," said Don Roque, losing patience. "We are
charmed with your conversation; but if you can take us this instant to
the house of my friend, or direct us so that we can find it, we will go
along."
"In a minute, gentlemen. Don't hurry," replied Sursum Corda, starting
off in advance with all the agility of which his crutches were capable.
"Let us go there. Let us go, with all my heart. Do you see this house?
Well, here lives Antonio Laste, first sergeant of the Fourth Company
of Regulars, and you must know he saved from the treasury sixteen
thousand, four hundred pesos, and took from the French the candles that
they stole from the church."
"Go on ahead, go on, friend," I said, seeing that this indefatigable
talker intended stopping to give all the details of the heroism of
Antonio Laste.
"We shall arrive soon," replied Sursum; "on the morning of the first of
July I was going past here, when I encountered Hilario Lafuente, first
corporal of fusileers of the Parish of Sas, and he said to me, 'To-day
they are going to attack the Portillo;' then I went to see what there
was to see and--"
"We know all about this, already," said Don Roque. "Let us go on fast.
We can talk afterwards."
"This house which you see here burned down and in ruins," continued
the cripple, going around a corner, "is the one that burned on the
fourth, when Don Francisco Ipas, sub-lieutenant of the Second Company
of fusileers of the parish of San Pablo, stood here with a cannon, and
these--"
"We know the rest, my good man," said Don Roque. "Forward, march! and
the faster the better."
"But much better was what Codé did, the farmer of the parish of La
Magdalena, with the cannon of the Calle de la Parra," persisted the
beggar, stopping once more. "When he was going to fire the gun, the
French surrounded him, everybody ran away; but Codé got under the
cannon, and the French passed by without seeing him. Afterwards, helped
by an old woman who brought him some rope, he pulled that big piece of
artillery as far as the entrance of the street. Come, I will show you!"
"No, no, we don't want to see a thing. Go along ahead."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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