84 



INCIDENTS OP TRAVEL. 



and saw two fellows shaking their muskets at us with the 

 expression of fiends ; but, hurried on by those behind, 

 they cried out ferociously, "Estos picaros otro vez," 

 " Those rascals again." The last of the line had hardly 

 disappeared before we heard a volley of musketry, and 

 in a moment fifty or sixty men left in the plaza snatch- 

 ed up their arms and ran down a street opening from 

 the plaza. Very soon a horse without a rider came 

 clattering down the street at full speed ; three others 

 followed, and in five minutes we saw thirty or forty 

 horsemen, with our friend Figoroa at their head, dash 

 across the street, all running for their lives ; but in a 

 few moments they rallied and returned. We walked 

 toward the church, to ascend the steeple, when a sharp 

 volley of musketry rolled up the street on that side, and 

 before we got back into the house there was firing 

 along the whole length of the street. We knew that 

 a chance shot might kill a non-combatant, and se- 

 cured the doors and windows ; but finally, as the firing 

 was sharp, and the balls went beyond us and struck 

 the houses on the opposite side, with an old servant- 

 woman (what had become of the widow I do not know), 

 we retired into a small room on the courtyard, with de- 

 lightful walls, and a door three inches thick and bullet- 

 proof, shutting which, and in utter darkness, we listened 

 valiantly. Here we considered ourselves out of harm's 

 way, but we had serious apprehensions for the result. 

 The spirit on both sides was to kill ; giving quarter was 

 not thought of. Morazan's party was probably small, 

 but they would not be taken without a desperate fight ; 

 and from the sharpness of the firing and the time oc- 

 cupied, there was probably a sanguinary affair. Our 

 quondam friends, roused by bloodshed, wounds, and 

 loss of companions, without any one to control them, 



