Cristoval gave voice. Found Mocho, and roared a warning. A Spanish trumpet was blowing the recall, and the charge had been arrested. Mocho was ordering back his men, but as well shout at a mountain torrent. They bore forward with resistless pressure, and Cristoval was forced against the rampart, fighting them back and shouting with all the strength of his lungs. Futile! They passed and were mounting the rampart. As he stood on the _débris_ at the foot of the scarp he was head and shoulders above the work, and glancing up, saw again the spark of fire, just as he felt himself seized by a strong hand and dragged back toward the wall of the Acllahuasi. Pedro shouted something, drowned by an explosion that shook the earth, and in the flash he saw—horror not to be told. A gun had been dragged to the top of the breastwork and fired in the very faces of the Antis. Horror not to be told, not to be imagined, while falconet and arquebus raked the street. Pedro held the cavalier with firm grip as they crouched beneath the spurts and flashes of the fire overhead, their ears benumbed by the repeated shocks. At length the rush and yells of the retreating Antis died away, and the arquebus-fire was stopped; but the falconet still roared, though with longer intervals between the shots. Cristoval counted the seconds intervening. There would be time enough to allow a dash to the gate of the Acllahuasi, where they would have cover until the firing ceased. He spoke to Pedro,—no fear of being overheard, for the night was full of voices raised in every intonation which agony could wrench from human lips. Between explosions they reached the gate through the stinging atmosphere, but as they turned into its shelter Cristoval halted his comrade with a hand upon his arm. From the enclosure came the sound of Spanish voices, and lights were flitting. Valverde had reported the invasion, and the place had been entered through another door. A party was coming toward the gate. No alternative, then, but to keep the street, count the seconds, and before each discharge, throw themselves upon the pavement behind their bucklers. These, faced with steel, might deflect the slugs and fragments with which the gun was charged.