"For the soul of the departed Don César Pardo: Our Father who art in heaven,ñaltaMartayMarí hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." The prisoners began to pray with fervor. Some of the soldiers did the same. Then they relapsed into silence as they marched along, and nothing was heard but the sound of labored breathing, and occasionally the complaints of the wounded, not very well accommodated in their litters. At last they crossed the highest point of the watershed, and began to descend toward the wide valley of * * *. The dawn was already appearing in the confines of the east. The dull blue of the sky in that quarter was fading into a pale, melancholy light, which at the same time blotted out the sparkling stars. The travellers felt a chill, unpleasant breath of wind which turned their noses and hands purple. Very soon a great golden fringe spread over the eastern hills, and the band could regard at their pleasure the valley stretching out at their feet, where the green of the meadows and the yellow of the plowed lands shone in multitudinous tones, coarse or soft, like a rich mantle of brocade. A few tufts of cloud were slowly rising from the depths of the streamlets which furrowed it; and yonder, in the west, a great curtain of black mountains, on whose summits the snow still gleamed white, shut it in abruptly, casting across it a great mantle of shadow. In spite of this shadow, the eyes of the travellers who knew the region could distinguish in the very edge of the black curtain the spire of the proud tower of the cathedral of * * *. The prisoners and their guards reached the plain, and crossed the valley from one end to the other, expending much time in the transit, principally because of the care required by the wounded. Finally, at eight o'clock in the morning, they reached the first houses of the suburb of * * *.
The inhabitants of the capital had heard of the sudden blow struck by the military governor against the Carlists of Nieva, and a great throng, collected in the streets, was impatiently waiting to see the prisoners pass by. It was composed almost entirely of what, during the revolutionary period, was called the sovereign people; that is, of all the ragamuffins and rough-scuff of the city, together with quite a number of respectable people, though loungers, and almost all the _ladies_ of the suburbs.