loopholed and barricaded, flashed fire on every side, as skilled marksmen, hidden behind their walls, shot with deadly effect among the French troops.

The soldiers, opening interior passages from the houses they had captured into those adjoining, were enabled to proceed as far as the Calle Quemada, one of the chief streets which opened into the great boulevard of the Cosso. Here a galling fire from the cannon of the barricades rendered further advance impossible. Meanwhile a furious assault was being made upon the Santa Engracia by the Poles of the Musnier division and the soldiers and officers of the engineers. They made themselves masters of the convent, and pushing on across an open space, approached the Convent of the Capuchins. The carabineers of the 5th light infantry at the same time made a charge upon the Capuchins, and these two forces uniting speedily took the convent and its battery.

And now the 115th of the Line, whose eagerness to rush to the assistance of their comrades had long been manifest, could no longer be restrained. "En avant!" shouted the Major. They dashed forward to the long wall between the Santa Engracia and the Convent of the Capuchins, entered through the embrasures and advanced into the interior of the town. They found themselves in the street of Santa Engracia. On one side stood the enormous Convent of the Nuns of Jerusalem, next to it the madhouse, and opposite, the Monastery of St. Francis. The Spaniards concealed in these great buildings opened a terrific fire upon the French.

The head of the column halted and suddenly fell back as the soldiers, crowded together in the narrow

street, endeavored to return the fire of their hidden foes. Pierre was pushed against the wall of the Convent of the Nuns of Jerusalem so tightly that he could not move. The air was thick with smoke, through which came the bright flashes of the enemy's fire. On every side resounded the groans and curses of the soldiers and the shouts of exultation of their adversaries.

Suddenly the doors of the Monastery of St. Francis were flung open. The Spaniards infuriated by the capture of their walls and the taking of the Capuchin Convent, were no longer content to stand on the defensive. They came to battle with their enemies. A body of sharpshooters of Castanos' army, led by forty monks of the order of St. Francis and a number of Spanish women, whose religious fanaticism roused them to frenzy, rushed out. Shouting, "Death to the invaders!" they ran toward the French. The women armed with long knives were even more violent than the men and attacked the soldiers with unwonted fury. It was a hand-to-hand conflict there in the street of Santa Engracia, and all the time the musketry fire continued to pour upon French and Spaniards alike from the Convent of the Nuns of Jerusalem. A part of the monks, who remained grouped upon the steps of the Monastery, shouted words of encouragement to their followers, and the aged white-haired abbot held aloft his great gilded crucifix as though the sight of this holy emblem would paralyze the arms of his enemies.

The French, firing at short range, and using their bayonets with deadly effect, cut their way to the monastery steps, and a fierce contest took place between them and the monks gathered there. As the first

grenadier dashed up the steps, the aged abbot beat him on the head with the great crucifix and stretched him lifeless on the stones. In a moment four soldiers pierced the monk with their bayonets, and, dropping the crucifix, he fell dead upon the body of his adversary. The monks defended themselves with vigor, but the soldiers, by this time wild with fury, cut and stabbed them with ferocity, and rushing over their dead bodies poured into the interior of the monastery. When the first ranks of the French rushed forward, Pierre was freed from the pressure which had held him against the convent wall and charged with the other soldiers. Just in front of him was a great voltigeur, and, as they advanced, a Spanish woman with flying hair, wild, haggard eyes and bare arms smeared with blood, sprang forward and stabbed the soldier in the arm. With a terrible oath the voltigeur turned, tore the knife from her hand and, seizing her by her long hair, forced her to her knees, as he stabbed her again. and again. Pierre felt sick at heart and rushed on toward the monastery. The dense smoke choked and blinded him, the tremendous firing almost deafened him. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his right side, everything swam around him and he fell to the ground. As he gradually came to his senses, he realized that he was lying on his face. He could not move, a great weight seemed to press upon his legs. He felt the pain in his side, and when he attempted to struggle to sit up, it became so sharp that he fell back helpless. "It is all up with me," thought Pierre. "Soon some Spaniard will come and finish me." The street was full of smoke, and it was so dark that he could see nothing; he thought night must have come.

The firing had ceased from the Convent of the Nuns of Jerusalem.

How different it all was from what he had expected! He had hoped for a grand charge, like the one Jean had described, to the inspiring blast of the trumpet, behind the white plume of Murat, and under the eyes of the great Emperor. The Emperor was far away in France, and here was war stripped of all its grandeur, war in all its horror! Burning houses, women massacred in the streets, unseen enemies pouring forth their deadly fire! Around him were the bodies of the dead and the groans of the dying, and, as he lay there on the rough stones, he remembered the words of his mother, "You, too, will fall like Robert and père Amand. The Pasquins are not lucky!"

CHAPTER IV

THE SURRENDER

The horrid war-whoop and the shriller scream
Rose still; but fainter were the thunders grown;
Of forty thousand who had manned the wall,
Some hundreds breathed, the rest were silent all!
-BYRON, Don Juan.

A GHASTLY spectacle was the street of Santa Engracia in the dawn of the morning of the 28th of January. On every side lay heaps of dead, while guns, knapsacks, cartridge boxes, and battered timbers were strewn thickly about the ground.

Before the Convent of the Nuns of Jerusalem the fire had been fiercest, and there the bodies were most numerous. The dead voltigeurs of the 115th lay mingled with the brigands of Castanos' army, while here and there among the slain might be seen the corpse of some poor Spanish woman, who, roused to fury by religious zeal, had perished in defense of all she held most dear.

The Monastery of St. Francis, with its walls blackened by powder and stained with blood and its great doors battered and torn from their hinges, remained in the possession of the French. Before the main entrance lay the monks, and upon the top step the aged abbot, his white hair stained with blood, while above him was suspended the great crucifix which some soldier had fastened to the casing of the door.