The Tigrero straightway set a trap, in which several of the principal chiefs of the insurgents were caught, believing that they would find General Guerrero at home, and were at once made prisoners.
These three points occupied, they waited. Colonel Lupo had attacked the San Lázaro gate so vigorously and unexpectedly, that it was impossible to prevent him burning it. A very obstinate fight at once began, and the colonel, after a brave resistance, had been at length compelled to retreat and fall back on the main body of the insurgents, who were still masters, or nearly so, of the centre of the city.
We have mentioned that in Mexico all the houses are flat roofed; hence, in any revolution, the scenes in the street are repeated on the terraces of the houses; for the tactics adopted in such cases are to line these terraces with soldiers. Through a strange fatality the insurgents, while seizing the principal streets, had forgotten, or rather neglected, to occupy the houses, as they believed themselves masters of the situation.
All at once the terraces in Tacuba Street, looking on the Plaza Mayor, were covered with sharpshooters, who began a tremendous fire on the insurgents collected beneath them. The same manoeuvre was simultaneously executed in Monterilla and San Augustín Streets, and the terraces of the palace were covered with troops also.
The artillerymen, who had hitherto fired at long range, now brought up their guns almost within pistol shot of the streets, and, in spite of the musketry fire of the insurgents, bravely posted their batteries and began hurtling showers of canister among the defenders of the barricades.
Almost simultaneously, the troops faithful to the government appeared in the rear of the rebels, and being supported by the sharpshooters on the terraces, charged vigorously to the incessantly repeated cry of "Méjico, Méjico, Independencia!"
The insurgents felt they were lost, for they were caught between three fires; still they offered a courageous resistance, for, knowing that if they fell alive into the hands of the conqueror, they would be mercilessly shot, they allowed themselves to be killed with Indian stoicism, and did not yield an inch of ground.