seemed deeply interested, and smiled benignantly; he wished to hear from each one, of their families, their homes, a thousand details which seemed to please him; and thus passed an hour of expectation and hope. At last he said to them, with the greatest complacency, "Do you hear those guns? It is too late: they are shot." A cry of horror arose, like that which escapes from a flock of doves pursued by a falcon. They had indeed been shot—and how? Thirty-three officers, from the rank of colonel upwards, received the fatal balls entirely naked. Two brothers, sons of one of the first families of Buenos Ayers, embraced each other at the last moment, so that the body of one prevented the ball from reaching the other. The latter cried, "I am saved." A mistake, unfortunate one! How much he would have given to live. While confessing, he had taken a ring from his mouth, where it was concealed, and had charged the priest to give it to his betrothed; who, on receiving it, lost her reason, and never again recovered it.
The cavalry took charge of the corpses, and dragged them to the cemetery; so that bits of brain, arms, and legs remained on the square of Tucuman, and served as food for the dogs. How many victories are thus tarnished!
Don Juan Manuel Rosas had killed in the same manner and almost at the same time, at St. Nicholas de los Arroyos, twenty-eight officers, not to speak of more than a hundred assassinations. If anything can add to these horrors, it is the fate of Colonel Arraya, the father of eight children, and a prisoner, witk three lance wounds in his shoulder. He was forced to enter
