. . .
That night there was repique or ringing of bells in the towers of
Logrono, and the few priests who had escaped from the pestilence
sang litanies to God and the Virgin for the salvation of the town
from the hands of the heathen. The attempt of the Gitanos had been
most signally defeated, and the great square and the street were
strewn with their corpses. Oh! what frightful objects: there lay
grim men more black than mulattos, with fury and rage in their
stiffened features; wild women in extraordinary dresses, their
hair, black and long as the tail of the horse, spread all
dishevelled upon the ground; and gaunt and naked children grasping
knives and daggers in their tiny hands. Of the patriotic troop not
one appeared to have fallen; and when, after their enemies had
retreated with howlings of fiendish despair, they told their
numbers, only one man was missing, who was never seen again, and
that man was Alvarez.
In the midst of the combat, the tempest, which had for a long time
been gathering, burst over Logrono, in lightning, thunder,
darkness, and vehement hail.
A man of the town asserted that the last time he had seen Alvarez,
the latter was far in advance of his companions, defending himself
desperately against three powerful young heathen, who seemed to be
acting under the direction of a tall woman who stood nigh, covered
with barbaric ornaments, and wearing on her head a rude silver
crown.
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