While this was going on, other columns equally powerful were trying to take the Casa de Gonzalez, which I have before mentioned. But from the neighboring houses, and the towers of the wall, came such a terrible fire of rifles and cannons that they desisted from their attempt. Other attacks took place, with better results for them, at our right, toward the orchard of Camporeal and the batteries of Los Martires. The immense force displayed by the besiegers along one line of short extent could not fail to produce results. From the house in the Calle de Pabostre, close to the Molino of the city, we were, as I have said, firing upon the besiegers, when behold the batteries of San José, formerly occupied in demolishing the wall, directed their cannons against that ancient edifice. We felt that the walls were trembling; the beams were cracking like the timbers of a ship tossed by a tempest; the wood of the walls was cracking too in a thousand fragments. In short, the place was tumbling down. "Cuerno, recuerno!" exclaimed Uncle Garces, "what if the house falls down upon us!" The smoke of the powder prevented us from seeing what was going on without or within. "To the street! To the street!" cried Pirli, throwing himself out of a window. "Augustine! Augustine! where art thou?" I called to my friend. But Augustine did not appear. In that moment of alarm, not finding either doorway or ladder to descend, I ran to a window to throw myself out; and the spectacle which met my eyes obliged me to draw back without strength or breath. While the cannons of San José were essaying on the right to bury us in the ruins of the house, and seemed to be accomplishing it without effort, in front of and towards the gardens of San Augustine, the French infantry had succeeded at last in penetrating the breaches, killing those unhappy creatures scarcely to be called men, and finishing those who were already dying, for indeed their desperate agony could not be called life. From the neighboring alleys came a horrible fire. The cannons of the Calle de Diezma took the place of those of the conquered battery. But the breach taken, the French were securing themselves on the walls. It was impossible for me to feel in my soul a spark of energy on beholding such stupendous disaster. I fled from the window, terrified,--beside myself. A piece of the wall cracked and fell in enormous fragments, and a square window took the shape of an isosceles triangle; through a corner of the roof I could see the sky. Bits of lime and splinters struck me in the face. I ran further in, following others, who were saying, "This way! this way!" "Augustine! Augustine!" I called again. At last I saw him among those who were running from one room to another, going up a ladder which led to a garret. "Are you alive?" I asked him. "I do not know; it is not important," he answered.