"Well, I should think I can, man, well, I should think I can!"
answered the cripple, taking from his pocket a crust of dry bread
for his breakfast. "From the Calle de la Parra he moved to the Calle
de Enmedio. You know that all those houses were blown up. There was
Stephen Lopez, a soldier of the Tenth Company of the First Regiment of
Aragon Volunteers, and he alone, with forty men, himself forced the
French to retire."
"That must have been a fine thing to see!" said Don Roque.
"Oh, if you did not see the fourth of August you have seen nothing,"
continued the beggar. "I myself also saw the fourth of June, because I
was crawling along the Calle de la Paja, and I saw the woman who fired
off the big cannon."
"We have already heard of the heroism of that noble woman," said Don
Roque; "but if you could make up your mind to tell us--"
"Oh, of course. Don José de Montoria is a great friend of the merchant
Don Andrés Guspide, who on the fourth of August was firing from near
the narrow street of the Torre del Pino. Hand-grenades and bullets were
raining all about him, and my Don Andrés stood like a rock. More than a
hundred dead lay about him, and he alone killed fifty of the French."
"Great man, this one! And he is a friend of my friend?"
"Yes, señor," replied the cripple; "and they are two of the best
gentlemen in all Saragossa, and they give me a little something every
Saturday. For you must know that I am Pepe Pallejas, and they call me
Sursum Corda, as twenty-four years ago I was sacristan of the Church of
Jesus, and I used to sing----But this is not coming to the point, and I
was going on to say I am Sursum Corda, and perhaps you have heard about
me in Madrid?"
"Yes," said Don Roque, yielding to his generous impulses; "it seems to
me that I have heard the Señor Sursum Corda mentioned there, haven't
we, boys?"
"Well, it's likely, and you must know that before the siege I used to
beg at the door of this monastery of Santa Engracia, which was blown up
by the bandits on the thirteenth of August. I beg now at the Puerta
de Jerusalem, at the Jerusalem Gate--where you will be able to find
me whenever you like. Well, as I was saying, on the fourth of August
I was here, and I saw Francisco Quilez come out of the church, first
sergeant of the First Company of fusileers, who, you must already know,
with thirty-five men, cast out the bandits from the Convent of the
Incarnation. I see that you look surprised--yes! Well, in the orchard
of the convent at the back is where the Lieutenant Don Miguel Gila
died. There are at the least two hundred bodies in that orchard; and
there Don Felipe San Clement, a merchant of Saragossa, broke both his
legs. Indeed, if Don Miguel Salamero had not been present--don't you
know anything about that?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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