MASSACRE. 



115 



refuge there. Viera was taking chocolate with the 

 family, and gave Mrs. Hall a purse of doubloons and a 

 pistol to take care of for him. They were delivered up, 

 with a recommendation to mercy, particularly in behalf 

 of Viera ; but a few moments after Mr. Skinner entered 

 the house, and said that he saw Viera's body in the 

 plaza. Mr. Hall could not believe it, and walked round 

 the corner, but a few paces from his own door, and saw 

 him lying on his back, dead. In this scene of massacre 

 the Padre Zezena, a poor and humble priest, exposed 

 his own life to save his fellow-beings. Throwing him- 

 self on his knees before Carrera, he implored him to 

 spare the unhappy prisoners, exclaiming, they are Chris- 

 tians like ourselves ; and by his importunities and pray- 

 ers induced Carrera to desist from murder, and send 

 the wretched captives to prison. 



Carrera and his Indians had the whole danger and 

 the whole glory of defending the city. The citizens, 

 who had most at stake, took no part in it. The mem- 

 bers of the government most deeply compromised fled 

 or remained shut up in their houses. It would be hard 

 to analyze the feelings with which they straggled out to 

 gaze upon the scene of horror in the streets and in the 

 plaza, and saw on the ground the well-known faces and 

 mangled bodies of the leaders of the Liberal party. 

 There was one overpowering sense of escape from im- 

 mense danger, and the feeling of the Central govern- 

 ment burst out in its official bulletin : " Eternal glory to 

 the invincible chief General Carrera, and the valiant 

 troops under his command !" 



In the morning, as at the moment of our arrival, this 

 subject was uppermost in every one's mind ; no one 

 could talk of anything else, and each one had some- 

 thing new to communicate. In our first walk through 



