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Having reconnoitred the city and its environs, therefore, against a future campaign, he retired with his army and marched toward Baza. The old warrior El Zagal was himself drawn up in the city of Baza with a powerful garrison. He felt confidence in the strength of the place, and rejoiced when he heard that the Christian king was approaching.
We weren't allowed much time to enjoy the gayeties of this lovely French seaport, but were marched off to the train and sent north to the big show. We thought we had never seen such lovely scenery as the south of France.
In May, 1851, Justo Jose de Urquiza, one of his most trusted lieutenants, declared the independence of his own province and called upon the others to rise against the tyrant. Enlisting the support of Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay, he assembled a "great army of liberation," composed of about twenty-five thousand men, at whose head he marched to meet the redoubtable Rosas.
We marched in next day, eighteen miles, having covered a pear-shaped track eastwards of about forty miles, while the men behaved like Trojans under most uncomfortable circumstances. We remained for some days in camp, waiting for Lord Roberts to move, and fighting no more dangerous enemy than the wet and boisterous weather of young winter.
Around the next corner came another army of little boys. They carried flags, too. They marched straight toward Taro's army. "Now the war is coming! Now the war is coming!" shouted Take. All at once Taro's soldiers began to run. The other soldiers ran, too. They ran straight toward each other and tried to get each others' flags. Take saw Taro wave his sword. "On, soldiers, on!" he shouted.
Next morning, clad in his country homespun, he marched up along River Street, over the bridge, and up the hill to the villa quarter, where he had to ask the way. At last he arrived outside a white-painted wooden house standing back in a garden. Here was the place the place where his fate was to be decided. After the country fashion he walked in at the kitchen door.
Advancing silently at the head of 300 men the sentinel at the gate mistook his party for that which had marched out the preceding day, and allowed them to pass unchallenged, and almost in an instant they seized the blockhouse and two redoubts before the alarm was given. Major Sutherland, commandant of the post, with sixty Hessians, entered a redoubt and began a brisk fire on the assailants.
"Truly we have been but a short time, father," Albert said, "but we have seen much. Of course the news has not yet reached you, but the army of Flanders has been utterly broken by the French. Whether Van Artevelde was killed we know not, but of the fifty thousand men who marched to battle, we doubt whether half ever returned to their homes." "That was indeed a terrible defeat.
Among the prisoners taken by the Spaniards on this occasion were several Araucanian women, all of whom killed themselves the same night. Paynenancu, having escaped from the carnage, raised a new army and marched against Villarica, but was again defeated by Rodrigo Bastidas, the military commandant of that city.
For as the present marched steadily upon the future, devouring as it went; as the departure this future contained took on the shape of a fact, the countless details of which called for attention, it began to be accepted as even the most unpalatable facts in the long run usually are, with an ungracious resignation in face of the inevitable.
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