Scarcely had the aide-de-camp returned to the San Carlos before the heavy firing Henningsen heard on the evening of the 26th was also heard aboard of the steamer. The frequent flashes of discharging small arms formed a circle of fire around the wharf, and the deep, prolonged volleys of musketry, so distinct from the short, sharp crack of the rifle, told that the enemy were doing most of the work; nor were the shouts from the shore such as come from the lusty lungs of defiant or triumphant Americans. In a short time, too, a man swam to the steamer, and saying he had escaped from the wharf, told the story of its capture by the allies. The deserter, Tejada, had not only given the number of Grier’s men to the enemy, but had also pointed out how the wharf in the rear of the Americans might be reached with a large iron launch on the beach. At the same time Grier was assailed in the rear, a large force attacked him in front, and, paralyzed by the combined assault as well as by the number of the enemy, the Americans were nearly all killed or wounded, and taken prisoners without a serious struggle. Well does the conduct of these men, before and after the desertion of Tejada, illustrate the oft-repeated remark of the great captain, “that in war the moral is to the physical as three to one.” On the 27th, Henningsen moved his wounded from the parochial church, and the difficulty with which the labor was begun shows the indisposition of his force to do any work except fighting. Some of the Jamaica negroes, who had been at work on the lake steamer, and were caught in the town accidentally, were of service for fatigue duty; nor were prisoners from the guard-house entirely useless. After the wounded had been removed, a few hundred pounds of damaged powder were put under one of the towers of the church, and all the houses remaining on the Plaza were fired. The enemy tried to press on the Americans as they left the main square, but they were kept back by a few riflemen in the church towers until Henningsen was ready to withdraw. When all was prepared, the Americans abandoned the Plaza, and as they retired put a match to a train reaching the damaged powder under the church. The fire reached the powder, blowing the tower high into the air just as the too eager enemy were crowding into the Plaza, of which they had so long strove to get the mastery.