bring myself to run back to the barricade.

In the confusion which had ensued in the barracks when Garcia opened
the attack the men who ran out to meet him had left the gates of the
barrack yard open, and as I stood, uncertain what to do, I saw a
soldier pushing them together. He had just closed one when I caught
sight of him. I fired with my revolver, and shouted to the men. "We
must get inside those gates," I cried. "We can't stay here. Charge
those gates!" I pointed, and they all jumped from every part of the
plaza, and we raced for the barrack wall, each of us yelling as we
ran. A half dozen of us reached there in time to throw ourselves
against the gate that was just closing, and the next instant I fell
sprawling inside the barrack yard.

[Illustration: And the next instant I fell sprawling inside the
barrack yard]

We ran straight for the long room which faced the street, and as we
came in at one end of it the men behind the cots fired a frightened
volley at us and fled out at the other. In less than two minutes the
barracks were empty, and we had changed our base from that cock-pit of
a fountain to a regular fortress with walls two feet thick, with
rifles stacked in every corner, and, what at that moment seemed of
greatest importance, with a breakfast for two hundred men bubbling and
boiling in great iron pots in the kitchen. I had never felt such
elation and relief as I did over that bloodless victory. It had come
when things looked so bad; it had come so suddenly and easily that
while some of the men cheered, others only laughed, shaking each
other's hands or slapping each other on the back, and some danced
about like children. We tore the cots away from the windows and waved