men, matrons and children, and men both young
and old, had been butchered with every refinement of cruelty. It would
have taken too much powder to have shot them, quoth Calleja, and forsooth
the rebels were not worth the outlay.

"We had seen enough," continued Jago, over whose cheeks burning tears were
now running, while his voice was choked with rage. "It was not the first
time we had seen bloodshed, and our stomachs could bear something, but
this was too much. We turned back to Guadalajara more dead than alive.

"What followed is scarce worth relating. We strove to make another stand,
brought down forty-three cannons from San Blas, and fortified ourselves at
the bridge of Calderon; but all in vain! The angel of death had marked us
for his prey; Guanaxato had quenched our courage; we were no longer the
same men. At one moment there seemed still a chance of victory and
revenge. Our Indians, who fought like tigers, although without order or
discipline, made a desperate charge upon Calleja's army. The whole line
gave way; the fight was won. At that very instant an ammunition-waggon
blew up; the Indians thought that Satan himself was come amongst them,
were seized with a panic, and took to flight; the Gachupins plucked up
courage; a fresh regiment, which Calleja had kept in reserve, charged
vigorously. All was over.

"It was plain that Hidalgo's star had set. He fled, poor fellow! was
betrayed and delivered up by his own countrymen. But _basta!_ The account
was closed for the year one thousand eight hundred and eleven."

CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.

"Even as they fell, in files they lay;
Like the mower's grass at the close of day,
When his work is done on the levell'd plain,
Such was the fall of the foremost slain."

_Siege of Corinth._

The patriot captain's animated narrative had not failed to make a lively
impression on his hearers, at the same time that it worked a remarkable
change in his own appearance. Strongly excited by the recollections it
called up, the disagreeable and rather mean expression of his tawny
physiognomy vanished, his forehead seemed to expand, and a sarcastic and
scornful smile that at times played over his features gave him an air of
superiority to his hearers, as, with that extraordinary flexibility of
organ that is to be remarked in southern nations, he narrated the various
stirring events of the first patriot campaign; the struggles and
sufferings o