The interior, which has recovered its calm, is singular.
The mass has not been said there since the carnage.
Nevertheless, the altar has been left there-- an altar of unpolished wood, placed against a background of roughhewn stone.
Four whitewashed walls, a door opposite the altar, two small arched windows; over the door a large wooden crucifix, below the crucifix a square air-hole stopped up with a bundle of hay; on the ground, in one corner, an old window-frame with the glass all broken to pieces--such is the chapel.
Near the altar there is nailed up a wooden statue of Saint Anne, of the fifteenth century; the head of the infant Jesus has been carried off by a large ball. The French, who were masters of the chapel for a moment, and were then dislodged, set fire to it.
The flames filled this building; it was a perfect furnace; the door was burned, the floor was burned, the wooden Christ was not burned.
The fire preyed upon his feet, of which only the blackened stumps are now to be seen; then it stopped,-- a miracle, according to the assertion of the people of the neighborhood. The infant Jesus, decapitated, was less fortunate than the Christ.
The walls are covered with inscriptions.
Near the feet of Christ this name is to be read:
Henquinez.
Then these others: Conde de Rio Maior Marques y Marquesa de Almagro (Habana). There are French names with exclamation points,--a sign of wrath. The wall was freshly whitewashed in 1849.