Worth is there, the gallant fellow, just in time. Down the road
and over the ditch, through the field and hedge and swamp, in tumult and
panic the Mexicans are flying from the bayonets of the Sixth and
Garland's brigade. A shout, louder than the cannon's peal; Worth is on
their heels with his men. Before Shields reaches the causeway he is by
his side driving the Mexican horse into their infantry, and Ayres is
galloping up with a captured Mexican gun. Captain Kearny, with a few
dragoons, dashes past, rides straight into the flying host, scatters
them right and left, sabres all he can reach, and halts before the gate
of Mexico. Not till then does he perceive that he is alone with his
little party, nearly all of whom are wounded; but, despite the hundreds
of _escopetas_ that are levelled at him, he gallops back in safety to
headquarters.
The sun, which rose that morning on a proud army and a defiant
metropolis, set at even on a shattered, haggard band, and a city full of
woe-stricken wretches who did nothing all night but quake with terror,
and cry, at every noise, "_Aqui viene los Yanquies_!" ("Here come the
Yankees!") All along the causeway, and in the fields and swamps on
either side, heaps of dead men and cattle intermingled with broken
ammunition-carts, marked where the American shot had told.
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