"It's a hundred to one shot, Carter, that ye can't do it." Murphy's voice, in its excitement, dropped into brogue. "Will ye try? Will ye tell him to git th' diplomats togither, and ask an armistice? Ye know our countersign, '_Vegas y Libertad_.'" But Saxon had already started off in the general direction of the main plaza. For two squares, he met no interference. For two more, he needed no other passport than the countersign, then, as he turned a corner, it seemed to him that he plunged at a step into a reek of burnt powder and burning houses. There was a confused vista of men in retreat, a roar that deafened him, and a sudden numbness. He dropped to his knees, attempted to rise to his feet, then seemed to sink into a welcome sleep, as he stretched comfortably at length on the pavement close to a wall, a detachment of routed _insurrectos_ sweeping by him in full flight. CHAPTER XIII The passing of the fugitive _insurrectos_; their mad turning at bay for one savage rally; their wavering and breaking; their disorganized stampede spurred on by a decimating fire and the bayonet's point: these were all incidents of a sudden squall that swept violently through the narrow street, to leave it again empty and quiet. It was empty except for the grotesque shapes that stretched in all the undignified awkwardness of violent death and helplessness, feeding thin lines of red that trickled between the cobblestones. It was silent except for echoes of the stubborn fighting coming from the freer spaces of the plazas and _alamedas_, where the remnants of the invading force clung to their positions behind improvised barricades with the doggedness of men for whom surrender holds no element of hope or mercy. Into the canyon-like street where the frenzy of combat had blazed up with such a sudden spurt and burned itself out so quickly, Saxon had walked around the angle of a wall, just in time to find himself precipitated into one of the fiercest incidents of the bloody forenoon. Vegas and Miraflores had not surrendered. Everywhere, the insistent noise told that the opposing forces were still debating every block of the street, but in many outlying places, as in this _calle_, the revolutionists were already giving back. The attacking army had counted on launching a blow, paralyzing in its surprise, and had itself encountered surprise and partial preparedness. It had set its hope upon a hill, and the hill had failed. A prophet might already read that _Vegas y Libertad_ was the watchword of a lost cause, and that its place in history belonged on a page to be turned down.