CHAPTER XVI. THE ASSAULT.

At the frightful discharge which greeted them, and scattered death in their ranks, the guerilleros fell back with horror; surprised by those whom they calculated on surprising, prepared to plunder but not to fight, their first thought was flight, and an indescribable disorder broke out in their ranks.

The defenders of the hacienda, whose number had considerably increased, took advantage of this hesitation to send a shower of bullets among them. Some resolution must be formed, however, either to advance under the bullets, or give up the expedition.

The proprietor of the hacienda was rich, as the guerilleros were aware; for a long time past they had desired to seize this wealth, which they coveted, and which, whether rightly or wrongly, they supposed to be hidden in the hacienda; it cost them a struggle to give up this expedition so long prepared, and from which they promised themselves such magnificent results.

Still the bullets constantly scattered among them, and they did not dare to pass the breach. Their chiefs, even more interested than they in the success of their projects, put an end to any hesitation, by resolutely arming themselves with pickaxes and crowbars, not only to enlarge the breach, but also to completely throw down the wall, for they understood that it was only by a sudden eruption that they could succeed in overthrowing the opposition which the defenders of the hacienda offered them.

The latter continued to fire bravely, but most of their shots were thrown away, as the guerilleros were working under shelter, and were very cautious not to show themselves in front of the breach.

"They have changed their tactics," the count said to Dominique, "they are now engaged in throwing down the wall, and will soon return to the attack; and," he added, taking a sorrowful glance around, "we shall be conquered; for the men who accompany us are not capable of resisting a vigorous attack."

"You are right, friend, the situation is serious," the young man answered.

"What is to be done?" the majordomo asked.

"Stay, I have an idea," Dominique suddenly said, striking his forehead; "you have gunpowder here?"

"Yes, thank heaven, there is no want of that; but what is the use of it?"

"Have a barrel brought here as speedily as possible, I answer for the rest."

"That is easy."

"In that case go."

The majordomo ran off.

"What do you intend to do?" the count asked.

"You shall see," the young man replied, with flashing eyes; "by Heaven, a glorious idea has occurred to me. These brigands will probably seize the hacienda, and we are too weak to resist them, and it is only a question of time for them; but, by Jupiter, it shall cost them dearly."

"I do not understand you."

"Ah," the young man continued, in a state of feverish excitement; "ah, they wish to open a wide passage; well, I undertake to make it for them; wait a while."

At this moment the majordomo returned, bringing not one, but three barrels on a truck; each of these barrels contained about 120 pounds of gunpowder.

"Three barrels!" Dominique exclaimed, joyously; "All the better: in this way each of us will have his own."

"But what do you intend doing?"

"I mean to blow them up, by heaven!" he exclaimed. "Come to work! Imitate me!"

He took a barrel and unheaded it; the count and Leo Carral did the same.

"Now," he said, addressing the peons, who were startled by these sinister preparations; "back, you fellows, but still continue to fire, and keep them on the alarm."

The three men remained alone with the count's two servants, who refused to abandon their master. In a few words Dominique explained his plan to his companions. They raised the barrels, and gliding silently behind the trees, approached the grotto. The besiegers, occupied in destroying the wall inside, and not daring to venture in front of the breach, could not see what was going on outside. It was therefore an easy task for the five men to reach the very foot of the wall the guerilleros were demolishing, without being discovered. Dominique placed the three powder barrels so as to touch the wall, and on these barrels, he, aided by his companions, piled all the stones he could find. Then he took his mechero, drew out the tinder match, from which he cut off about six inches, lit it, and planted it on one of the barrels.

"Back! Back!" he said, in a low voice; "The wall no longer holds! See how it is bulging. It will fall in a moment."

And, setting the example, he ran off at full speed. Nearly all the defenders of the hacienda, about forty in number, with don Andrés at their head, were assembled at the entrance of the huerta.

"Why are you running so hard?" the hacendero asked the young men; "Are the brigands after you?"

"No, no," Dominique replied; "not yet; but you will soon have news of them."

"Where is do?a Dolores?" the count asked.

"In my apartments with her women, and perfectly safe."

"Fire, you fellows!" Dominique shouted to the peons.

The latter recommenced a tremendous fire.

"Raimbaut," the count said, in a low voice; "we must foresee everything. Go with Lanca Ibarru, and saddle five horses: mind one of them is a side-saddle. You understand me, do you not?"

"Yes, my lord."

"You will lead these horses to the door which is at the end of the huerta. You will wait for me there with Lanca, both well armed. Go."

Raimbaut went off at once, as quiet and calm as if nothing extraordinary were occurring at the moment.

"Ah!" said don Andrés with a sigh of regret; "If Melchior was here he would be very useful to us."

"He will be here soon, se?or, you may be sure," the count remarked, ironically.

"Where can he be, though?"

"Ah! Who can tell?"

"Ah! Ah!" Dominique exclaimed; "Something is going on down there."

The stones, vigorously assailed by the repeated blows of the guerilleros, were beginning to fall outwards. The breach was rapidly entered, but at last a whole piece of wall fell in one mass into the garden. The guerilleros uttered a loud shout, threw down their picks, and seizing their weapons, prepared to rush forth. But suddenly a terrible explosion was heard; the earth quivered as if agitated by a volcanic convulsion; a cloud of smoke rose to the sky, and masses of ruins, raised by the explosion, were hurled in all directions. A horrible cry of agony rang through the air, and that was all: a deadly silence brooded over the scene.

"Forward! Forward!" Dominique shouted.

The injury caused by the mine was terrible. The entrance of the passage, completely destroyed, and filled up with masses of earth and heaped-up stones, had not permitted one of the assailants to pass. Here and there the disfigured remains of what had been a moment before men, emerged from the middle of the fragments. The catastrophe must have been awful, but the passage kept the secret close.

"Oh! Heaven be praised! We are saved!" don Andrés exclaimed.

"Yes, yes," the majordomo said; "if no other assailants arrive from another quarter."

Suddenly, as if in justification of the remark, loud cries were heard blended with shots, and a vivid flame, which rose from the outhouses of the hacienda, lit up the country with a sinister gleam.

"To arms! To arms!" the peons shouted, as they ran up in alarm. "The guerilleros! The guerilleros!"

And they speedily saw, by the red glow of the fire which was devouring the buildings, the black outlines of some hundred men, who hurried up, brandishing their weapons, and uttering yells of fury. A few paces in advance of the bandits advanced a man, holding a sabre in one hand, and a torch in the other.

"Don Melchior!" the old gentleman exclaimed, despairingly.

"By heaven! I will stop him!" Dominique said, taking aim at him.

Don Andrés darted at the gun, which he threw up.

"It is my son!" he said.

The shot passed harmlessly through the air.

"Hum! I fancy you will repent having saved his life, se?or," Dominique coldly replied.

Don Andrés, dragged away by the count and Dominique, entered his apartments, all the issues to which his peons hastily barricaded, and then kept up a sustained fire from the windows on the besiegers.

Don Melchior had an understanding with the partisans of Juárez. Reduced, as the majordomo had very correctly told the count, to a state of desperation by the speedy marriage of his sister, and the inevitable loss of the fortune of which he had so long entertained the hope of being sole heir, the young man forgot all moderation, and, under certain conditions accepted by Cuéllar, though with, the intention of not fulfilling them, he had proposed to the latter to surrender the hacienda to him; and all the measures had been taken in consequence. It was then arranged that a portion of the cuadrilla, under the orders of resolute officers, should attempt a surprise by the secret passage, which the young man had previously made known. Then, while this troop was operating, the other of the cuadrilla, under Cuéllar's own orders, and guided by don Melchior, would silently scale the walls of the hacienda on the side of the corrals, which the inhabitants would doubtless neglect to defend. We have related the success of this double attack.

Cuéllar, though he was still ignorant of it, had lost one half of his cuadrilla, who were buried under the ruins of the grotto. With the men left him he was at this moment waging an obstinate fight with the peons of the hacienda, who, knowing they had to deal with the band of Cuéllar, the most ferocious and sanguinary of all Juárez' guerilleros, and that this band never granted quarter, fought with the energy of desperation, which renders strength tenfold as great. The combat lasted some time. The peons, ambushed in the apartments, had lined the windows with everything that came to hand, and fired under cover at the assailants scattered about the courtyards, on whom they entailed considerable losses. Cuéllar was furious, not alone at this unforeseen resistance, but also at the incomprehensible delay of the soldiers of his cuadrilla who had entered by the grotto, and who should have joined him long ere this. He had certainly heard the noise of the explosion, but as he was at the time at a considerable distance from the hacienda, in a direction diametrically opposed to that where the explosion took place, the noise had reached his ears indistinctly, and he had paid no further attention to it; but the inexplicable delay of his comrades at this moment, when their help would have been so valuable, was beginning to cause him lively anxiety, and he was on the point of sending one of his men off to hurry the laggards, when suddenly shouts of victory were raised from the interior of the buildings he was attacking, and several guerilleros appeared at the windows, brandishing their weapons joyously. It was owing to don Melchior that this decisive success was obtained. While the main body of the assailants attacked the buildings in front, he, accompanied by several resolute men, stepped through a low window, which in the first moment of confusion they had forgotten to barricade like the rest. He had entered the interior, and suddenly appeared before the besieged, whom his presence terrified, and on whom his comrades rushed with sabres and pistols.

At this moment it was no longer a fight but a horrible butchery. The peons, in spite of their entreaties, were seized by the conquerors, stabbed, and hurled through the windows into the courtyard. The guerilleros soon poured through all the buildings, pursuing the wretched peons from room to room, and pitilessly massacring them. They thus reached a large drawing room, whose large folding doors were wide open; but on arriving there they not merely stopped, but recoiled with an instinctive movement of terror before the terrible spectacle that was presented to them. This room was splendidly lit up by a number of candles, placed in all the chandeliers and on the various articles of furniture. In one corner of the room a barricade had been erected by piling up the furniture: behind this barricade, do?a Dolores had sought shelter with all the wives and children of the hacienda peons, two paces in front of the barricade, four men were standing erect with a gun in one hand and a pistol in the other. These four men were don Andrés, the count, Dominique and Leo Carral: two barrels of gunpowder with the heads knocked out were placed near them.

"Halt," the count said in a jeering voice, "halt, I request, caballeros; one step further, and we blow up the house. Do not pass the threshold, if you please."

The guerilleros were careful not to disobey this courteous hint, for at the first glance they recognized with whom they had to deal. Don Melchior stamped his foot savagely on seeing himself thus rendered powerless.

"What do you want?" he asked in a strangled voice.

"Nothing of you; we are men of honour, and will not parley with a scoundrel of your stamp."

"You shall be shot like dogs, accursed Frenchmen."

"I defy you to put your threat in execution," said the count, as he coolly cocked the revolver he held in his hand and pointed it at the barrel of gunpowder by his side.

The guerilleros recoiled, uttering shrieks of terror.

"Do not fire, do not fire," they exclaimed; "here is the colonel."

In fact, Cuéllar arrived. Cuéllar is a frightful bandit, this statement will surprise nobody, but we must do him the justice of stating that he possesses unparalleled bravery. He forced his way through his soldiers, and soon found himself standing alone in front of them. He bowed gracefully to the four men, and examined them craftily, and while idly rolling a cigarette.

"Well," he said gaily, "the affair you have imagined is most ingenious, and I sincerely compliment you upon it, caballeros. Those demons of Frenchmen have incredible ideas, on my honour," he added, speaking to himself; "they never allow themselves to be taken unawares; there is enough there to send us all to paradise."

"And in case of need we would no more hesitate to do it than we hesitated to blow up your men, whom you sent as scouts through the grotto."

"What," Cuéllar asked, turning pale, "what is it you are saying about my soldiers?"

"I am saying," the count replied coldly, "that you can have their corpses sought for in the passage, all will be found there, for all have fallen there."

A shudder of terror ran along the ranks of the guerilleros at these words.

There was a silence. Cuéllar was reflecting. He raised his head, every trace of emotion had disappeared from his face, and he looked around him as searching for something.

"Are you looking for a light?" Dominique asked him, as he advanced toward him candle in hand: "Pray light your cigarette, se?or."

And he politely held out the candle.

Cuéllar lit his cigarette, and returned the candlestick.

"Thanks, se?or," he said.

Dominique rejoined his companions.

"So then," said Cuéllar, "you request a capitulation."

"You are mistaken, se?or," the count replied coolly; "on the contrary, we offer you one."

"You offer us?" the guerillero said with amazement.

"Yes, since we are masters of your life."

"Pardon me," Cuéllar said, "that is specious, for on blowing us up, you will go with us."

"Hang it! That is precisely what we intend."

Cuéllar reflected once more.

"Come," he said a moment after, "let us not wage a war of words, but come to the fact like men: what do you want?"

"I will tell you," the count answered.