Chapter IX: The Night of Sorrow

All day the city had been in a state of nervous anxiety, all manner of conflicting rumours were current, every horseman who appeared in the streets was beset by a crowd of eager questioners, men ran to and fro and went from house to house, gleaning what intelligence they could. According to some General Liniers had marched from the Puente Galvès at dawn in search of the enemy, according to others he was yet encamped there and beset by the entire English army. As either hope or fear gained the ascendant, so each man spoke as his hopes or his fears prompted him.

Thus the day wore on; occasionally there was heard the far-off rattling of musketry or the dull boom of a distant gun, but nothing certain was known. Then in the eventide it spread about that the enemy had passed the Riachuelo and was marching upon the city, from the church towers their red-coated soldiery could be seen manoeuvring on the open ground of the Plaza Miserere. But where was General Liniers? where were the citizen soldiers who had marched out so proudly to drive those English into the sea? The anxiety of the city became consternation.

Then from the west and near at hand there came again the rattling sound of musketry, interspersed with the frequent booming of the guns. The sound came in gusts, fitfully, now dying away into a feeble treble, the spattering fire of skirmishers anon swelling to a full chord, the regular volley-firing of drilled troops accompanied with the deep bass of the cannon. About half-an-hour the firing lasted, dying gradually away as the shades of night fell upon the anxious city. What had happened? Men hurried about no longer, seeking news, each sat in his own place, waiting for the news which would surely come.

After nightfall terror-stricken fugitives hurried through the streets, each seeking his own home, each telling his own tale of defeat and ruinous disaster. Then the anxiety of the city, which had become consternation, became despair.

From every household arose the voice of sorrow and of lamentation. Mothers embraced their sons, wives clasped husbands to their bosoms, welcoming them back from deadly peril, but they welcomed them back with tears, and as they listened to their tale a cry of sorrow burst from them, and there was loud wailing over the shame and disgrace which had fallen upon their native city. And there were households to which none returned, there were mothers who watched and waited for sons whom they were never more to see, there were wives who listened with painful eagerness for a well-known footstep which would never more fall upon their ears, and who, though they knew it not, were already widows. Throughout the great straggling city there was mourning and desolation. And the city was in darkness, and darkness, if it be not rest, is sorrow and despair.

Then up rose Don Martin Alzaga from his seat at the council-table; Don Martin Alzaga, president of the Cabildo, of that body which had now the destinies of the city in its hands. Don Martin had listened in stern silence to the various reports brought in by members of the Cabildo who had been abroad in the city in search of news. Of Liniers himself no one knew anything, but of the fate of his army there could be no question, it had been shamefully beaten and dispersed by what was, from all accounts, only a detachment of the invading force; it was no longer an army, Buenos Aires lay defenceless before her victorious enemy. Buenos Aires lay defenceless, yet, though she knew it not, in her defenceless condition lay her chiefest strength. The overthrow over which she mourned awakened the heroism innate in the Iberian race, and at the same time inspired the British generals with an overweening confidence, sure prelude of disaster.

From the days of Cortes and Pizarro to the present, the Iberian race has ever shown itself greatest in misfortune. In prosperity cruel, arrogant, and blind, the Spanish people have, when overwhelmed by disaster, ever shown a capacity for endurance and a fertility of resource such as has rarely been displayed by any other. When misfortunes have fallen upon them, such as would crush other peoples to the dust, then it is that they first put out their strength and rise superior to all disaster. The secret of it lies partly in national character, but more still in this fact, that the strength of Spain lies, not in her great men and her nobles, but in her people. When Spain was the head of a mighty empire, her nobles were new men sprung from the great body of the people, who had carved out their fortunes by their swords; their valour and their skill gave Spain the empire over two worlds; these men were the representative men of the Spanish people. Since then, the ruling class in Spain had been gradually and systematically raised above the people, and separated from them. The people were taught submission, and learned to see others rule over them until they lost all care or interest in the aims and objects of their rulers.

At the commencement of the war of succession the Archduke Charles and his English allies overran nearly the whole of Spain and took possession of the capital. So again, at an epoch later than this of which we treat, the armies of Napoleon marched from the Pyrenees to Cadiz in one unbroken series of triumphs. The great men of Spain, as imbecile as they were arrogant, invited by their ignorance the destruction which fell upon them; the soldiers of Spain, who were recruited from the people, cared not to shed their blood for rulers they despised, they fled, hardly waiting for the enemy to attack them. Then in each case, when all was lost, the Spanish people rose in their strength and cast out the foreign rulers set over them by foreign force.

Buenos Aires, a colony of Spain, has inherited two of the chief characteristics of the mother-country, pride and heroism. As though they were Spaniards, her native leaders have often shown themselves too proud to learn, and have thus brought disaster upon their country; when the disaster has come, they have ever met it with the heroism of the Iberian race.

Don Martin Alzaga was a true son of Spain, he had supported Liniers in his rash determination to face the veteran troops of England with his militia and half-drilled levies, he had scoffed at the idea of taking any further measures for defence; the blow had now fallen, Buenos Aires lay at the mercy of her enemy. All evening Don Martin had sat in his chair, listening in silence to the long chronicle of disaster; as each said his say and sat down, his spirits rose within him, and in his brain he revolved rapidly all that had been before said concerning the defence of the city. If Buenos Aires must fall, then let the enemy have nothing more than ruins over which to triumph.

Such were the thoughts of Don Martin Alzaga as he rose from his chair at the head of the council-table and spoke as follows:--

"Señores, a great disaster has befallen us. Our army is destroyed, we know not what has become of our general-in-chief, the illustrious Señor Don Santiago Liniers; in his absence the responsibility falls upon us. There is now no time for vacillation, we must look our danger straight in the face, and, if it please God, we shall yet find a way for our deliverance. We have now no army, but the dispersed soldiers are flocking back to the city; we have yet guns, muskets, and men, why then should we despair? I look upon many a downcast face, I have heard from many of you words of sorrow, as though hope were gone from us; from what you relate, the whole city is given over to lamentation. True it is that we have suffered a great disaster, but shall one blow suffice to subdue us? Are we not Spaniards? Is not this Buenos Aires of ours the first city on the great South American continent? Are we not the same men who not a year ago forced an entire English army to capitulate, although they were established in our citadel and had taken our city from us? Let us cast aside this depression and this unmanly sorrow, and join heart and hand together in the great work which it has fallen upon us to perform. Let us show ourselves worthy of the trust which the illustrious Reconquistador placed in us when he marched only yesterday against the foe. Let us rouse the citizens from the stupor of despair into which they have fallen, let us reunite our dispersed soldiery, and to-morrow again show a firm front to the arrogant enemy who assails us. To-morrow this enemy, exultant with his transient success, will doubtless summon us to surrender our city; I, as the chief of this Cabildo, will receive this summons and shall return it with disdain, without waiting to know what terms he may offer; never shall any treaty for the surrender of our city bear the signature of Martin Alzaga.

"What say you, Señores? Will you show yourselves worthy to be rulers of Buenos Aires? Will you aid me to vindicate the outraged honour of our country?"

Don Martin paused and looked proudly round him, the faces of his hearers, no longer downcast, reflected his own enthusiasm, each eye sought his, brilliant with hope. Springing to their feet they crowded round him, assuring him that they were all of one mind, and that mind was to lay the city in ruins rather than surrender.

"Señores," said Don Gregorio Lopez, "we will entrench the city and defend it block by block against the invaders. Old as I am I encharge myself with the defence of my own quarter."

"Yet you have your plan, Don Gregorio!" said Don Martin Alzaga gaily. "I believe it comes now very much to the point."

"The plan of my young friend Evaña," replied Don Gregorio.

"Let it be whose it may, we will study it together, and we two will decide what can be done with it, but first, Señores, there are other things more urgent. The people are in despair, and night has covered the city with mourning; the first thing we have to do is to raise the spirit of the people. Once that we reinspire them with confidence, we may hope everything from their courage and abnegation, which we all know. Let us disperse the darkness of night with bonfires and illuminations; the sorrow and the shame will give place to enthusiasm."

"Well said," said Don Gregorio Lopez. "The illuminations will also attract the fugitives, who may yet be dispersed about the suburbs. It also appears that General Balviani took no part in the engagement with the English, and is yet encamped at the Puente Galvès with his division; let us send for him at once, and we shall have a nucleus upon which to reform the stragglers."

No time was lost in discussion, these propositions were at once adopted. Various members of the Cabildo sallied forth to see after the illuminations, and a mounted officer galloped away by the southern road with an order to General Balviani to retire at once upon the city.

Midnight came, the city was one blaze of light. Lights shone from the windows of every house, festoons of lamps hung across many a street; on every open space and at every street corner in the suburbs there blazed huge bonfires, encircling the city with a girdle of flames. The British sentries at the Plaza Miserere looked wonderingly upon these endless lines of fire, and listened anxiously to the rising hum of many thousand voices, which declared the whole city to be astir. That city, since sundown so dark and desolate, so sunken in sorrow and despair, was now a scene of wild excitement and of fierce resolve; men said only one to another, What shall we do? Men sought only for a leader. The defeat of the evening was an affair long past and forgotten; men thought only of the morrow, and of the stern duty which on that morrow they would surely do.

In the midst of all this excitement Balviani's division returned to the city, marching swiftly along the illuminated streets, dragging their guns with them, which guns Balviani had directed to be spiked on receipt of the order from the Cabildo for his immediate return; but to his command the artillerymen paid no heed, harnessing themselves to the guns and dragging them through pantanos and mud, when their wearied cattle dropped with fatigue, while the rain poured down upon them in torrents. Yet in spite of the rain the people crowded round them as they marched along, saluting them with shouts and with many a warm pressure of the hand. Their march more resembled the triumphant entry of a victorious army than the return of the remnant of a beaten one.

Meantime some of the elder members of the Cabildo had been occupied in a careful examination of the plan of the Señor Evaña for the defence of the city. It was improbable that the English would at once attack them, a day at least must elapse before they could bring up their entire force from the Ensenada. But the plan was much too extensive to be carried out in one day, though it was exceedingly simple; they therefore determined upon the adoption of one part of it only: to draw a line including one block of houses all round the two central Plazas; to dig a ditch across the end of every street on this line, throwing up the earth inside, and forming on it a breastwork, and a platform for a gun; to garrison strongly all the azoteas on this line, and to station a strong force at each trench. Further, they determined that all the spare arms they possessed should be distributed to such of the citizens as might apply for them for the defence of their own houses, and that all the troops they could spare, after providing sufficiently for the central garrison, should be distributed about the azoteas all round to the distance of ten squares from the Plaza Mayor, and that each block should be placed under the command of some trustworthy officer; with instructions to harass the invaders to the utmost of their power as they advanced towards the centre, but not to attempt to meet them in the streets.

Then a list was made out of the officers to whom was to be entrusted the work of constructing the various trenches and a second of those who were to command in each block, both within and without the line of entrenchments.

Among these appointments Major Belgrano was entrusted with the construction of two of the defences to the south of the Plaza Mayor. Captain Lorea, with his own company, had charge of the block in which his own house stood, which was considered to be one of the most important outposts; his brother-in-law, Don Felipe Navarro, had command of the block situated to the west of the Church of Santo Domingo; and Don Marcelino Ponce de Leon and his negroes were appointed to the block contiguous to the Church of San Miguel. All these appointments were provisional, for nothing positive was known as yet as to the losses which the army had suffered in the action at the Corrales de la Miserere.

The plan of defence thus adopted was a part only of that sketched out by Don Carlos Evaña, which was modified by the suppression of an exterior line of defence and of sundry details, for the carrying out of which the time was too short. The garrisons of the Retiro and the Residencia, which formed two most important outposts to the north and south of the central Plazas, were to be instructed to defend themselves to the last extremity.

* * * * *

Two hours after sundown on that night of sorrow, Doña Dalmacia Navarro sat alone in her sala, alone and in darkness, save for a lamp which burned dimly in the ante-sala on the writing-table of her husband. So had she sat alone ever since the firing had ceased on the Plaza Miserere, communing anxiously with herself, refusing all attention or sympathy from those who would gladly have shared her anxiety with her, replying only to those who would at times approach her with this one question:

"Yet has no one come?"

And the answer was always, no. Men hurried across the wide, open space before her sala windows and along the adjacent street; eagerly listening, she heard something of the words they spoke as they passed on--these words were ever of disaster, ruin and despair, and as she listened her heart sank within her. The army was evidently completely beaten; and Isidro and the gallant men he led, she knew them well, they were not the men to fly like frightened boys, they would have withstood the onset of the English even if left alone; and those volleys she had heard, and that roaring of the guns, at whom had they been directed? who had fired them? She shuddered to herself as she thought how she had exulted at the sound, and had pictured to herself hundreds of prostrate foes, stretched in wounds and death on her native soil.

Unable to bear her anxious thoughts in the quiet darkness of her sala, she rose from her seat and went into the ante-sala, drawing her heavy mantle round her with a shiver. She went and sat in her husband's chair, and leaned upon his desk, turning over his papers mechanically, scarce knowing what she did. She took up his pen and fondled it in her hands; beside it lay a tinsel penwiper, heavily embroidered with beads and gold cord, which she had made for him herself; she bent over it and kissed it, as she had seen him do the day she had given it to him, his saint's day, not two short months ago. Then she looked under the sofa and saw his slippers lying there, and drew them out and laid them beside his chair ready for him when he should come in. Would he ever put them on again? As she asked herself that question a low moan broke from her, she could look at them no longer, she could no longer bear the sight and neighbourhood of all these things which spoke to her of him, and seemed to ask her were they his no more? She left the ante-sala and the dim light, and went back to the darkness of her sala, crouching down on a low chair and burying her face in her hands.

Then there came a footstep and a voice, two voices, both of them she knew. They were safe--her husband and her brother. What mattered defeat and shame, they might be retrieved, but from death there is no return. A wild joy succeeded to her anxious sorrow, she started to her feet; as she reached the folding-doors, her husband stood before her, but oh! so changed. Dripping wet--for it was raining heavily,--with clothes torn and covered with mud, his face pale and haggard, his eyes deep sunk in his head; but for his voice she would scarce have known him.

"Isidro!" she exclaimed, opening her arms to him.

But he shrank from her, and, throwing himself upon the sofa, buried his face in the cushions.

"Do not touch me, do not come near me," he said, as she bent over him. "You know not what has happened."

"The English have been too strong for you," said Doña Dalmacia, seating herself beside him, and laying one soft arm on his neck.

"They were few, and we fled from them like sheep, like sheep. We are disgraced for ever. Never more shall we dare to look them in the face."

"You are tired; to-morrow will be another day."

"Ah! Dalma, if you only knew how they made us march; all the blessed day without a morsel to eat and nothing but muddy water to drink," said Don Isidro, raising himself on his elbow and venturing at last to look at his wife. What he saw in her face was a tender look of pity and of sympathy.

"Are you not ashamed of me, Dalma?" he asked her, with a brightening eye. "I am a runaway and a coward. Are you not ashamed of me, Dalma?"

"You are no coward, Isidro," said Doña Dalmacia, throwing her arms round his neck; "you are tired and have eaten nothing; to-morrow will be another day."

Don Isidro bowed his head upon her shoulder, and for a minute there was silence between them.

Don Felipe Navarro, who had come in with his brother-in-law, had thrown himself wearily into an arm-chair.

"Yes, Dalma, my sister," said he, "to-morrow will be another day, and we without an army shall have all the invaders upon us. Those we saw to-day were only the vanguard."

"Without an army," exclaimed Doña Dalmacia, looking round at him with a fresh terror in her eyes. "Have then so many fallen? And the Reconquistador, what has become of him?"

"Of Liniers I know nothing. We have not many killed, but the army is dispersed," replied Don Felipe.

"We have no hope now, for there is no confidence," said Don Isidro. "All the fight was without order; it may be said that there was no fight. We were not beaten, we ran away because we did not know what to do."

"So long as it was an affair of shooting," said Don Felipe, "our men stood well enough, but when they came at us with the bayonet----Do you know, it is an imposing thing, that charge with the bayonet. Those English with their smooth faces look like boys, but when they came at us in a long line close together we felt that they were men. If we had waited for them the half of our men would have stopped there for ever."

"Have many stopped there?" said Doña Dalmacia. "I have heard heavier firing at a review."

"Of ours we have lost very few," replied Don Isidro. "The corps on the left, where Liniers was, were all in disorder, and I don't think they lost many. But I fear me much, Dalma, we have lost a friend."

"Say!" said Doña Dalmacia, nervously closing one hand upon his shoulder.

"'Los Morenos de Ponce,' are almost annihilated."

"Marcelino sacrificed himself and his men to save the others," said Felipe Navarro.

"It is what one might foretell of him," said Doña Dalmacia, bursting into tears.

"Do not weep, my soul," said Don Isidro. "As yet we know nothing positive. Felipe and I met some of the negroes after nightfall, and went back with them to the quinta from which they were driven. There were many dead lying about, and we carried off a great many wounded; every house about there is a hospital. We searched where they said he had fallen--we found the bodies of three negroes, but of him we could find nothing."

"Always we will hope," said the brave lady, rising and wiping away her tears. "To-morrow will be another day."

Just then there came a knock at the outer door, and a loud voice shouted:

"Order from the Señores of the Cabildo. That three lights be placed in every window and a lamp hung in every doorway."

Again the knock was repeated.

"It shall be done," said Don Isidro, running out himself in answer to the summons.

* * * * *

At the Quinta de Ponce the whole household was astir before sunrise on the morning of the 2nd July, roused from sleep by the cries of the female servants and slaves, who had seen Evaristo saddle his pony and gallop off towards town at dawn. Don Roderigo paced anxiously to and fro in the sala, his wife covered with a loose wrapper and with dishevelled hair vainly trying to soothe him.

"Where can that foolish boy have gone to?" said he. "Did he speak to no one before he went?"

"I can tell you, papa," said Dolores, who came in at that moment, "he has gone to join Marcelino; he said he would be with him when the fighting began, and Evaristo always does what he says he will."

"What can he do? a mere boy like him?" said Doña Constancia, clasping her hands and looking tearfully at her husband.

"Do not cry, Mamita," said Dolores, half crying herself, "God will protect him as he will Marcelino."

"Who has made you so wise about what God will do?" said Don Roderigo sharply. "No duty calls him away from us."

As they spoke a mulatta girl came running into the room.

"Oh! Patrona! the English! the English!!" cried she, wringing her hands.

Dolores and her mother clung to each other in terror.

"Where?" said Don Roderigo, putting himself in the way of the terrified mulatta, and stamping his foot to bring her to her senses.

"The English Señor, Patron, the English Señor, Don Alejandro, he has climbed up a tree, and he can see them on the highroad. They go straight for the city, he knows them. Oh! my God! what will become of us?"

"Silence, fool!" said Don Roderigo; "if they are going to the city they will not come here."

At frequent intervals all day long Lieutenant Gordon climbed up into his tree, giving an account of all the movements he saw in the open country round him. Three hours after the passing of this first body, which Gordon had calculated at about 2000 men, and which had marched by the highroad leading to the Puente Galvès, there came a much larger body, which left the road, and crossing camp about half-a-league to the south of the Quinta de Ponce, marched round the headwaters of the Arroyo Maciel and then turned northwards towards the Paso Zamorra on the Riachuelo.

Anxiously the day passed with them all. About noon the sound of cannon and musketry came to them from a direction far to the west of the Puente Galvès, but it soon ceased, and no more was heard till close upon sundown, when it commenced again, dying gradually away as darkness came on. Again Gordon climbed into his tree; over the tree-tops of the quintas about the Plaza Miserere there hung light clouds of white smoke, then night came on, all was again silent; what had happened?

This question Doña Constancia asked herself as she sat in a low chair in the sala. Dolores, seated beside her on a low stool, resting her head upon her mother's knee, asked herself that question also. Don Roderigo, Juan Carlos, and Gordon each also asked himself that question; no one answered it, and they expected no answer till the morrow. They sat in darkness, for darkness was to them rest and relief, hiding from each the anxiety which clouded the faces of them all; and in silence, for each feared to give utterance to his own thoughts. There came a barking of dogs, a trampling of horses' feet, and a confused sound of voices outside; the door opened, a servant came in bearing a lighted lamp and announced: "El Señor Colonel Lopez."

As Colonel Lopez entered the room he bowed gravely to all present, then advancing to Doña Constancia he ceremoniously kissed her hand. They crowded round him in silence, waiting for him to speak, all save Doña Constancia, who sat still in her chair twining her fingers together nervously, and looking eagerly at him. But he spoke not, throwing his hat on to a chair, and fumbling with the throat-buttons of his cloak.

"Say--what news?" said Don Roderigo. "How has the day gone with ours?"

"What news?" replied the colonel. "Little, and what there is is bad. Where can I take off this cloak of mine?" he added, looking significantly at Don Roderigo.

"Come this way," said the latter.

"No, no!" exclaimed Doña Constancia, springing to her feet and clutching him with both hands by one arm. "My son! have you seen him? Quick, tell me, anything is better than this uncertainty."

"Marcelino! yes, I was with him this morning. Since then I know nothing of him. We tried to capture two guns from these English; me they pitched into the river, of him I know nothing."

"No, no! you are hiding something from me; he was with you, what has become of him?"

"I tell you, Constancia, I know nothing."

"He is dead!" said Doña Constancia, sinking back into her chair and covering her face with her hands.

"Uncle," said Dolores in a hoarse voice, "tell all you know. I know that he can't be----" she could not finish the sentence.

"I believe he is a prisoner," said the colonel. "He passed the river with his negroes, and was cut off from the rest. He had no way to escape, I suppose he is a prisoner."

"I saw them," said Gordon. "There could not be much over 2000 of them. Where was Liniers? They said yesterday that he had marched out with all the garrison of the city."

"Liniers talks much, but knows nothing. The English played with him, got behind him, and marched upon the city. I watched them; for my part, I have had plenty of it. What could Marcelino and I do alone? They did not even take one step to support us. It appears that he counter-marched at once when he saw them across the river, and went back to the city; in the suburbs they fell upon him and routed him completely; without doubt you heard the firing two hours ago. We have no army now, and by this time the English have the city. All is lost, and I have come to consult with you," added he, laying his hand on the shoulder of Don Roderigo.

These two left the room together; the others remained, looking at one another in consternation.

"Do not believe him, Doña Constancia," said Gordon, kneeling down beside her. "You have been so good to me, I cannot bear you to look like that. What he has said is simply impossible; I am a soldier and know how these things are done. Marcelino would never have passed the river unless he had supports, and Liniers had five times as many men as those English I saw."

While Gordon with Juan Carlos and Dolores did all they could to calm the anxiety of Doña Constancia, Don Roderigo heard enough from the colonel to fill him with even deeper anxiety than before. Leaving him, he went out, called for his horse, and then returned to the sala, covered from neck to ankles in a large horseman's cloak, and with a brace of pistols in his waist-belt.

"You leave us?" exclaimed Doña Constancia, as she saw him return.

"Yes," said he, bending over her caressingly. "I am not a soldier; while we had an army I left this work to soldiers, now we have no army I shall do my duty as a citizen. Adios!"

So he left them, and Doña Constancia, leaning upon the shoulder of Juan Carlos, said dreamily:

"Father, sons, husband, all that I have, and this is what they call patriotism."

So saying, her knees bent under her and she would have fallen, but that her remaining son threw his arm round her, and supported her in a fainting state to a sofa, where, as she lay, she heard the footfalls of her husband's horse as he galloped rapidly away.