Tio Garces, with others as brave, ran to occupy the pulpit, another churrigueresque structure whose sounding board was crowned by a statue of Faith which reached almost to the roof. They mounted, occupying the little stair and the great chair, and from there, by a singular chance, they shut up every Frenchman who dared to show his head in that direction. They also suffered great loss, for the men in the altar were much annoyed by the pulpit, and tried hard to get that obstacle out of their way. At last some twenty Imperials came out, evidently bent upon reducing at all hazards that wooden redoubt without whose possession it was madness to attempt to come out into the broad nave. I have never seen anything more like a great battle, and as in that the attention of both armies is concentrated upon one point, the most eagerly disputed of all, whose loss or conquest decides the outcome of the struggle, so the attention of all was now directed to the pulpit, so well defended and so well attacked. The twenty had to resist a sharp fire from us in the choir, and the hand-grenades which were thrown at them from the galleries. But in spite of great loss, they advanced resolutely, bayonets fixed, upon the pulpit stairway. The ten defenders of the fortress were not intimidated, and defended themselves with empty guns, with the unfailing superiority which they always showed in that kind of conflict. Many of our men who were firing from the chapel altars and the confessionals, ran to attack the French with their swords, representing in that way, in miniature, conditions of a rude field battle; the contest was waged, man to man, with bayonet-thrusts, guns, and blows as each one met his adversary. The enemy was reinforced from the sacristy, and our rear-guard also came out of the choir. Some who were in the gallery on the right jumped upon the cornice of a great reredos at one side, and not satisfied with firing from there, threw down upon the French three statues of saints that capped its three angles. Meantime the pulpit was still held bravely, and in that hell of flame I saw Tio Garces standing erect, directing the men, and looking like a preacher screaming impudently with a hoarse voice. If I should ever see the devil preaching sin, standing on the great chair in the pulpit of a church invaded by all the other demons of hell in hideous riot, it would not especially attract my attention after that.