Augustine seated himself in a gateway, and, sheltering Mariquilla with his military cloak, he held her in his arms as one holds a child. Freed thus from her terror, she could talk; and she told us that she had not been able to save a single thing. They had scarcely had time to get out of the house. The unhappy girl was trembling with cold, and, putting my cloak over Augustine's, we tried to take her to the house where we were on duty. "No," she said, "I must go back to my father. He is wild and desperate, and is uttering blasphemies against God and the saints. I have not been able to get him away from that which was our house. We are in need of food. The neighbors were not willing to give us anything. If you are not willing to take me there, I will go alone." "No, Mariquilla, no. You shall not go there," said Montoria. "We will put you in one of these houses where at least for to-night you will be safe. In the mean time Gabriel shall go in search of your father, and take him something to eat, and by persuasion or by force will get him away from there." Mariquilla insisted upon returning to the Calle de Anton Trillo. But as she scarcely had strength to move, we took her in our arms to a house in the Calle de los Clavos, where Manuela Sancho was. CHAPTER XIX The firing of the guns and cannon ceased. A great splendor was illumining the city. It was the burning of the Audiencia. The fire, beginning about midnight, was devouring all four sides of that splendid edifice at one time. Without heeding anything but my errand, I hurried to the Calle de Anton Trillo. The house of Candiola had been burning all day. At last the flame had been stifled by pieces of falling roofs, and between the portions of walls still standing issued black columns of smoke. Through the window-frames showed patches of sky, and the bricks, crumbling away, had made a ragged-toothed looking thing of that which had been an architrave. Part of the wall which fronted on the garden had fallen down over the balcony, covering the end where the railing and the stone stairway had been, its stones spreading forward to the street wall. In the midst of these ruins the cypress stood unharmed, like the life which remains when the substance is gone. It raised its black head like a memorial. The gate had been destroyed by the axes of those who had rushed up at first to try to put out the fire.