“The combat deepens. On, ye brave!Who rush to glory or the grave.”“To all the sensual world proclaim:One crowded hour of glorious lifeIs worth an age without a name.”“Gashed with honorable scars,Low in Glory’s lap they lie;Though they fell, they fell like stars,Streaming splendor through the sky.”
The passing-by of Santa Anna and the Mexican army, though it had been hourly expected for nearly three days, was an event which threw the Senora and her daughters into various conditions of mental excitement. They descended from the roof to the Senora’s room, where they could move about and converse with more freedom. For the poor lady was quite unable to control her speech and actions, and was also much irritated by Antonia’s more composed manner. She thought it was want of sympathy.
“How can you take things with such a blessed calmness,” she asked, angrily. “But it is the way of the Americans, no doubt, who must have everything for prudence. Sensible! Sensible! Sensible! that is the tune they are forever playing, and you dance to it like a miracle.”
“My dear mother, can we do any good by exclaiming and weeping?”
“Holy Virgin! Perhaps not; but to have a little human nature is more agreeable to those who are yet on the earth side of purgatory.”
“Mi madre,” said Isabel, “Antonia is our good angel. She thinks for us, and plans for us, and even now has everything ready for us to move at a moment’s notice. Our good angels have to be sensible and prudent, madre.”
“To move at a moment’s notice! Virgin of Guadalupe! where shall we go to? Could my blessed father and mother see me in this prison, this very vault, I assure you they would be unhappy even among the angels.”
“Mother, there are hundreds of women today in Texas who would think this house a palace of comfort and safety.”
“Saints and angels! Is that my fault? Does it make my condition more endurable? Ah, my children, I have seen great armies come into San Antonio, and always before I have been able to make a little pleasure to myself out of the event. For the Mexicans are not blood-thirsty, though they are very warlike. When Bravo was here, what balls, what bull-fights, what visiting among the ladies! Indeed there was so much to tell, the tertulia was as necessary as the dinner. To be sure, the Mexicans are not barbarians; they made a war that had some refinement. But the Americans! They are savages. With them it is fight, fight, fight, and if we try to be agreeable, as we were to that outrageous Sam Houston, they say thank you, madam, and go on thinking their own cruel thoughts. I wonder the gentle God permits that such men live.”
“Dear mother, refinement in war is not possible. Nothing can make it otherwise than brutal and bloody.”
“Antonia, allow that I, who am your mother, should know what I have simply seen with my eyes. Salcedo, Bravo, Martinez, Urrea—are they not great soldiers? Very well, then, I say they brought some pleasure with their armies; and you will see that Santa Anna will do the same. If we were only in our own home! It must have been the devil who made us leave it.”
“How truly splendid the officers looked, mi madre. I dare say Senora Valdez will entertain them.”
“That is certain. And as for Dorette Valdez—the coquette—it will certainly be a great happiness to her.”
Isabel sighed, and the Senora felt a kind of satisfaction in the sigh. It was unendurable to be alone in her regrets and her longings.
“Yes,” she continued, “every night Senora Trespalacios will give a tertulia, and the officers will have military balls—the brave young men; they will be so gay, so charming, so devoted, and in a few hours, perhaps, they will go into the other world by the road of the battlefield. Ah, how pitiful! How interesting! Cannot you imagine it?”
Isabel sighed again, but the sigh was for the gay, the charming Luis Alveda. And when she thought of him, she forgot in a moment to envy Dorette Valdez, or the senoritas of the noble house of Trespalacios. And some sudden, swift touch of sympathy, strong as it was occult, made the Senora at the same moment remember her husband and her sons. A real sorrow and a real anxiety drove out all smaller annoyances. Then both her daughters wept together, until their community of grief had brought to each heart the solemn strength of a divine hope and reliance.
“My children, I will go now and pray,” said the sorrowful wife and mother. “At the foot of the cross I will wait for the hour of deliverance;” and casting herself on her knees, with her crucifix in her hand, she appeared in a moment to have forgotten everything but her anguish and her sins, and the Lamb of God upon whom, with childlike faith, she was endeavoring to cast them. Her tears dropped upon the ivory image of the Crucified, and sympathetic tears sprung into Antonia’s and Isabel’s eyes, as they listened to her imploration.
That night, when all was dark and still, Ortiz returned with the wagon. In the morning Antonia went to speak to him. He looked worn-out and sorrowful, and she feared to ask him for news. “There is food in the house, and I have made you chocolate,” she said, as she pitifully scanned the man’s exhausted condition.
“The Senorita is kind as the angels. I will eat and drink at her order. I am, indeed, faint and hungry.”
She brought him to the table, and when he refused to sit in her presence, she said frankly, “Captain Ortiz, you are our friend and not our servant. Rest and refresh yourself.”
He bent upon one knee and kissed the hand she offered, and without further remonstrance obeyed her desire. Isabel came in shortly, and with the tact of true kindness she made no remark, but simply took the chair beside Ortiz, and said, in her usual voice and manner: “Good morning, Captain. We are glad to see you. Did you meet my brother Thomas again?”
“Senorita, God be with you! I have not seen him. I was at Goliad.”
“Then you would see our brother Juan?”
“Si. The Senor Juan is in good health and great happiness. He sent by my willing hands a letter.”
“Perhaps also you saw his friend, Senor Grant?”
“From him, also, I received a letter. Into your gracious care, Senorita, I deliver them.”
“I thank you for your kindness, Captain. Tell us now of the fortress. Are the troops in good spirits?”
“Allow me to fear that they are in too good assurance of success. The most of the men are very young. They have not yet met our Lady of Sorrows. They have promised to themselves the independence of Texas. They will also conquer Mexico. There are kingdoms in the moon for them. I envy such exaltations—and regret them. GRACE OF GOD, Senorita! My heart ached to see the crowds of bright young faces. With a Napoleon—with a Washington to lead them—they would do miracles.”
“What say you to Houston?”
“I know him not. At Goliad they are all Houstons. They believe each man in himself. On the contrary, I wish that each man looked to the same leader.”
“Do you know that Santa Anna is in San Antonio?”
“I felt it, though I had no certain news. I came far around, and hid myself from all passers-by, for the sake of the wagon and the horses. I have the happiness to say they are safe. The wagon is within the enclosure, the horses are on the prairie. They have been well trained, and will come to my call. As for me, I will now go into the city, for there will be much to see and to hear that may be important to us. Senoritas, for all your desires, I am at your service.”
When Ortiz was gone, Isabel had a little fret of disappointment. Luis might have found some messenger to bring her a word of his love and life. What was love worth that did not annihilate impossibilities! However, it consoled her a little to carry Jack’s letter to his mother. The Senora had taken her morning chocolate and fallen asleep. When Isabel awakened her, she opened her eyes with a sigh, and a look of hopeless misery. These pallid depressions attacked her most cruelly in the morning, when the room, shabby and unfamiliar, gave both her memory, and anticipation a shock.
But the sight of the letter flushed her face with expectation. She took it with smiles. She covered it with kisses. When she opened it, a curl from Jack’s head fell on to her lap. She pressed it to her heart, and then rose and laid it at the feet of her Madonna. “She must share my joy,” she said with a pathetic childishness; “she will understand it.” Then, with her arm around Isabel, and the girl’s head on his shoulder, they read together Jack’s loving words:
“Mi madre, mi madre, you have Juan’s heart in your heart. Believe me, that in all this trouble I sorrow only for you. When victory is won I shall fly to you. Other young men have other loves; I have only you, sweet mother. There is always the cry in my heart for the kiss I missed when I left you. If I could hold your hand to-night, if I could hear your voice, if I could lay my head on your breast, I would say that the Holy One had given me the best blessings He had in heaven. Send to me a letter, madre—a letter full of love and kisses. Forgive Juan! Think of this only: HE IS MY BOY! If I live, it is for you, who are the loveliest and dearest of mothers. If I die, I shall die with your name on my lips. I embrace you with my soul. I kiss your hands, and remember how often they have clasped mine. I kiss your eyes, your cheeks, your dear lips. Mi madre, remember me! In your prayers, remember Juan!”
With what tears and sobs was this loving letter read by all the women; and the Senora finally laid it where she had laid the precious curl that had come with it. She wanted “the Woman blessed among women” to share the mother joy and the mother anguish in her heart. Besides, she was a little nervous about Jack’s memento of himself. Her superstitious lore taught her that severed hair is a token of severed love. She wished he had not sent it, and yet she could not bear to have it out of her sight.
“Gracias a Dios!” she kept ejaculating. “I have one child that loves me, and me only. I shall forgive Juan everything. I shall not forgive Thomas many things. But Juan! oh! it is impossible not to love him entirely. There is no one like him in the world. If the good God will only give him back to me, I will say a prayer of thanks every day of my life long. Oh, Juan! Juan! my boy! my dear one!”
Thus she talked to herself and her daughters continually. She wrote a letter full of motherly affection and loving incoherencies; and if Jack had ever received it he would doubtless have understood and kissed every word, and worn the white messenger close to his heart. But between writing letters and sending them, there were in those days intervals full of impossibilities. Love then had to be taken on trust. Rarely, indeed, could it send assurances of fidelity and affection.
Jack’s letter brightened the day, and formed a new topic of conversation, until Ortiz returned in the evening. His disguise had enabled him to linger about the Plaza and monte table, and to hear and observe all that was going on.
“The city is enjoying itself, and making money,” he said, in reply to question from the Senora. “Certainly the San Antonians approve of liberty, but what would you do? In Rome one does not quarrel with the Pope; in San Antonio one must approve of despotism, when Santa Anna parades himself there.”
“Has he made any preparations for attacking the Alamo? Will the Americans resist him?”
“Senorita Antonia, he is erecting a battery on the river bank, three hundred yards from the Alamo. This morning, ere the ground was touched, he reviewed his men in the Plaza. He stood on an elevation at the church door, surrounded by his officers and the priests, and unfurled the Mexican flag.”
“That was about eleven o’clock, Captain?”
“Si, Senorita. You are precisely exact.”
“I heard at that hour a dull roar of human voices—a roar like nothing on earth but the distant roar of the ocean.”
“To be sure; it was the shouting of the people. When all was still, Fray Ignatius blessed the flag, and sprinkled over it holy water. Then Santa Anna raised it to his lips and kissed it. Holy Maria! another shout. Then he crossed his sword upon the flag, and cried out—‘Soldados! you are here to defend this banner, which is the emblem of your holy faith and of your native land, against heretics, infidels and ungrateful traitors. Do you swear to do it?’ And the whole army answered ‘Si! si! juramos!’ (yes, we swear.) Again he kissed the flag, and laid his sword across it, and, to be sure, then another shout. It was a very clever thing, I assure you, Senora, and it sent every soldier to the battery with a great heart.”
The Senora’s easily touched feelings were all on fire at the description. “I wish I could have seen the blessing of the banner,” she said; “it is a ceremony to fill the soul. I have always wept at it. Mark, Antonia! This confirms what I assured you of—the Mexicans make war with a religious feeling and a true refinement. And pray, Captain Ortiz, how will the Americans oppose these magnificent soldiers, full of piety and patriotism?”
“They have the Alamo, and one hundred and eighty-three men in it.”
“And four thousand men against them?”
“Si. May the Virgin de los Remedios4be their help! An urgent appeal for assistance was sent to Fanning at Goliad. Senor Navarre, took it on a horse fleet as the wind. You will see that on the third day he will be smoking in his balcony, in the way which is usual to him.”
“Will Fanning answer the appeal?”
“If the answer be permitted him. But Urrea may prevent. Also other things.”
Santa Anna entered San Antonio on Tuesday the twenty-third of February, 1836, and by the twenty-seventh the siege had become a very close one. Entrenched encampments encircled the doomed men in the Alamo, and from dawn to sunset the bombardment went on. The tumult of the fight—the hurrying in and out of the city—the clashing of church bells between the booming of cannon—these things the Senora and her daughters could hear and see; but all else was for twelve days mere surmise. But only one surmise was possible, when it was known that the little band of defiant heroes were fighting twenty, times their own number—that no help could come to them—that the Mexicans were cutting off their water, and that their provisions were getting very low. The face of Ortiz grew constantly more gloomy, and yet there was something of triumph in his tone as he told the miserably anxious women with what desperate valor the Americans were fighting; and how fatally every one of their shots told.
On Saturday night, the fifth of March, he called Antonia aside, and said, “My Senorita, you have a great heart, and so I speak to you. The end is close. To-day the Mexicans succeeded in getting a large cannon within gunshot of the Alamo, just where it is weakest. Senor Captain Crockett has stood on the roof all day, and as the gunners have advanced to fire it he has shot them down. A group of Americans were around him; they loaded rifles and passed them to him quickly as he could fire them. Santa Anna was in a fury past believing. He swore then ‘by every saint in heaven or hell’ to enter the Alamo to-morrow. Senor Navarro says he is raging like a tiger, and that none of his officers dare approach him. The Senor bade me tell you that to-morrow night he will be here to escort you to Gonzales; for no American will his fury spare; he knows neither sex nor age in his passions. And when the Alamo falls, the soldiers will spread themselves around for plunder, or shelter, and this empty house is sure to attract them. The Senorita sees with her own intelligence how things must take place.”
“I understand, Captain. Will you go with us?”
“I will have the Jersey wagon ready at midnight. I know the horses. Before sun-up we shall have made many miles.”
That night as Antonia and her sister sat in the dark together, Antonia said: “Isabel, tomorrow the Alamo will fall. There is no hope for the poor, brave souls there. Then Santa Anna will kill every American.”
“Oh, dear Antonia, what is to become of us? We shall have no home, nothing to eat, nowhere to sleep. I think we shall die. Also, there is mi madre. How I do pity her!”
“She is to be your care, Isabel. I shall rely on you to comfort and manage her. I will attend to all else. We are going to our father, and Thomas—and Luis.”
Yes, and after all I am very tired of this dreadful life. It is a kind of convent. One is buried alive here, and still not safe. Do you really imagine that Luis is with my father and Thomas?”
“I feel sure of it.”
“What a great enjoyment it will be for me to see him again!”
“And how delighted he will be! And as it is necessary that we go, Isabel, we must make the best of the necessity. Try and get mi madre to feel this.”
“I can do that with a few words, and tears, and kisses. Mi madre is like one’s good angel—very easy to persuade.”
“And now we must try and sleep, queridita.”
“Are you sure there is no danger to-night, Antonia?”
“Not to-night. Say your prayer, and sleep in God’s presence. There is yet nothing to fear. Ortiz and Lopez Navarro are watching every movement.”
But at three o’clock in the morning, the quiet of their rest was broken by sharp bugle calls. The stars were yet in the sky, and all was so still that they thrilled the air like something unearthly. Antonia started up, and ran to the roof. Bugle was answering bugle; and their tones were imperative and cruel, as if they were blown by evil spirits. It was impossible to avoid the feeling that the call was a PREDESTINED summons, full of the notes of calamity. She was weighed down by this sorrowful presentiment, because, as yet, neither experience nor years had taught her that PREDESTINED ILLS ARE NEVER LOST.
The unseen moving multitudes troubled the atmosphere between them. In wild, savage gusts, she heard the military bands playing the infamous Dequelo, whose notes of blood and fire commingled, shrieked in every ear—“NO QUARTER! NO QUARTER!” A prolonged shout, the booming of cannon, an awful murmurous tumult, a sense of horror, of crash and conflict, answered the merciless, frenzied notes, and drowned them in the shrieks and curses they called for.
It was yet scarcely dawn. Her soul, moved by influences so various and so awful, became almost rebellious. Why did God permit such cruelties? Did He know? Would He allow a handful of men to be overpowered by numbers? Being omnipotent, would He not in some way, at least, make the fight equal? The instinct of her anglo-American nature revolted at the unfairness of the struggle. Even her ejaculations to heaven were in this spirit. “It is so unjust,” she murmured; “surely the Lord of Hosts will prevent a fight which must be a massacre.”
As she went about the simple preparations for their breakfast, she wept continuously—tears of indignation and sorrow—tears coming from the strength of feeling, rather than its weakness. The Senora could eat nothing. Isabel was white with terror. They wandered from window to window in the last extremity of anxiety.
About seven o’clock they saw Ortiz pass the house. There were so many people on the road he could not find an opportunity to enter for some time. He had been in the city all night. He had watched the movement of the troops in the starlight. As he drank a cup of chocolate, he said:
“It was just three o’clock, Senorita, when the Matamoras battalion was moved forward. General Cos supported it with two thousand men.
“But General Cos was paroled by these same Americans who are now in the Alamo; and his life was spared on condition that he would not bear arms against them again.”
“It is but one lie, one infamy more. When I left the city, about four thousand men were attacking the Alamo. The infantry, in columns, were driven up to the walls by the cavalry which surrounded them.”
“The Americans! Is there any hope for them?”
“The mercy of God remains, Senorita. That is all. The Alamo is not as the everlasting hills. What men have made, men can also destroy. Senor Navarro is in the church, praying for the souls that are passing every moment.”
“He ought to have been fighting. To help the living is better than to pray for the dead.”
“Permit me to assure you, Senorita Antonia, that no man has done more for the living. In time of war, there must be many kinds of soldiers. Senor Navarro has given nearly all, that he possesses for the hope of freedom. He has done secret service of incalculable value.”
“Secret service! I prefer those who have the courage of their convictions, and who, stand by them publicly.”
“This is to be considered, Senorita; the man who can be silent can also speak when the day for speaking arrives.” No one opposed this statement. It did not seem worth while to discuss opinions, while the terrible facts of the position were appealing to every sense.
As the day went on, the conflict evidently became closer and fiercer. Ortiz went back to the city, and the three lonely women knelt upon the house-top, listening in terror to the tumult of the battle. About noon the firing ceased, and an awful silence—a silence that made the ears ache to be relieved of it—followed.
“All is over!” moaned Antonia, and she covered her face with her hands and sobbed bitterly. Isabel had already exhausted tears. The Senora, with her crucifix in her hand, was praying for the poor unfortunates dying without prayer.
During the afternoon, smoke and flame, and strange and sickening odors were blown northward of the city, and for some time it seemed probable that a great conflagration would follow the battle. How they longed for some one to come! The utmost of their calamity would be better than the intolerable suspense. But hour after hour went past, and not even Ortiz arrived. They began to fear that both he and Navarro had been discovered in some disloyalty and slain, and Antonia was heartsick when she considered the helplessness of their situation.
Still, in accordance with Navarro’s instructions, they dressed for the contemplated journey, and sat in the dark, anxiously listening for footsteps. About eleven o’clock Navarro and Ortiz came together. Ortiz went for the horses, and Navarro sat down beside, the Senora. She asked him, in a low voice, what had taken place, and he answered:
“Everything dreadful, everything cruel, and monstrous, and inhuman! Among the angels in heaven there is sorrow and anger this night.” His voice had in it all the pathos of tears, but tears mingled with a burning indignation.
“The Alamo has fallen!”
“Senorita Antonia, I would give my soul to undo this day’s work. It is a disgrace to Mexico which centuries cannot wipe out.”
“The Americans?”
“Are all with the Merciful One.”
“Not one saved?”
“Not one.”
“Impossible!”
“I will tell you. It is right to tell the whole world such an infamy. If I had little children I would take them on my knee and teach them the story. I heard it from the lips of one wet-shod with their blood, dripping crimson from the battle—my own cousin, Xavier. He was with General Castrillon’s division. They began their attack at four in the morning, and after two hours’ desperate fighting succeeded in reaching a courtyard of the Alamo.
“They found the windows and doors barricaded with bags of earth. Behind these the Americans fought hand to hand with despairing valor. Ramires, Siesma and Batres led the columns, and Santa Anna gave the signal of battle from a battery near the bridge. When the second charge was driven back, he became furious. He put himself in front of the men, and with shouts and oaths led them to the third charge. Xavier said that he inspired them with his own frenzy. They reached the foot of the wall, and the ladders were placed in position. The officers fell to the rear and forced the men to ascend them. As they reached the top they were stabbed, and the ladders overturned. Over and over, and over again these attempts were made, until the garrison in the Alamo were exhausted with the struggle.”
Navarro paused a few minutes, overpowered by his emotions. No one spoke. He could see Antonia’s face, white as a spirit’s, in the dim light, and he knew that Isabel was weeping and that the Senora had taken his hand.
“At last, at the hour of ten, the outer wall was gained. Then, room by room was taken with slaughter incredible. There were fourteen Americans in the hospital. They fired their rifles and pistols from their pallets with such deadly aim that Milagros turned a cannon shotted with grape and canister upon them. They were blown to pieces, but at the entrance of the door they left forty dead Mexicans.”
“Ah Senor, Senor! tell me no more. My heart can not endure it.”
“Mi madre,” answered Isabel, “we must hear it all. Without it, one cannot learn to hate Santa Anna sufficiently”; and her small, white teeth snapped savagely, as she touched the hand of Lopez with an imperative “Proceed.”
“Colonel Bowie was helpless in bed. Two Mexican officers fired at him, and one ran forward to stab him ere he died. The dying man caught his murderer by the hair of his head, and plunged his knife into his heart. They went to judgment at the same moment.”
“I am glad of it! Glad of it! The American would say to the Almighty: ‘Thou gavest me life, and thou gavest me freedom; freedom, that is the nobler gift of the two. This man robbed me of both.’ And God is just. The Judge of the whole earth will do right.”
“At noon, only six of the one hundred and eighty-three were left alive. They were surrounded by Castrillon and his soldiers. Xavier says his general was penetrated with admiration for these heroes. He spoke sympathizingly to Crockett, who stood in an angle of the fort, with his shattered rifle in his right hand, and his massive knife, dripping with blood, in his left. His face was gashed, his white hair crimson with blood; but a score of Mexicans, dead and dying, were around him. At his side was Travis, but so exhausted that he was scarcely alive.
“Castrillon could not kill these heroes. He asked their lives of Santa Anna, who stood with a scowling, savage face in this last citadel of his foes. For answer, he turned to the men around him, and said, with a malignant emphasis: ‘Fire!’ It was the last volley. Of the defenders of the Alamo, not one is left.”
A solemn silence followed. For a few minutes it was painful in its intensity. Isabel broke it. She spoke in a whisper, but her voice was full of intense feeling. “I wish indeed the whole city had been burnt up. There was a fire this afternoon; I would be glad if it were burning yet.”
“May God pardon us all, Senorita! That was a fire which does not go out. It will burn for ages. I will explain myself. Santa Anna had the dead Americans put into ox-wagons and carried to an open field outside the city. There they were burnt to ashes. The glorious pile was still casting lurid flashes and shadows as I passed it.”
“I will hear no more! I will hear no more!” cried the Senora. “And I will go away from here. Ah, Senor, why do you not make haste? In a few hours we shall have daylight again. I am in a terror. Where is Ortiz?”
“The horses are not caught in a five minutes, Senora. But listen, there is the roll of the wagon on the flagged court. All, then, is ready. Senora, show now that you are of a noble house, and in this hour of adversity be brave, as the Flores have always been.”
She was pleased by the entreaty, and took his arm with a composure which, though assumed, was a sort of strength. She entered the wagon with her daughters, and uttered no word of complaint. Then Navarro locked the gate, and took his seat beside Ortiz. The prairie turf deadened the beat of their horses’ hoofs; they went at a flying pace, and when the first pallid light of morning touched the east, they had left San Antonio far behind and were nearing the beautiful banks of the Cibolo.
“How sleep the brave who sink to restBy all their country’s wishes bless’d?
By fairy hands their knell is rung;By forms unseen their dirge is sung.There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,To bless the turf that wraps their clay;And Freedom shall awhile repair,To dwell a weeping hermit there.”“How shall we rank thee upon glory’s page?Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage.”“Grief fills the room up of my absent child;Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me;Remembers me of all his gracious parts.”
Near midnight, on March the ninth, the weary fugitives arrived at Gonzales. They had been detained by the deep mud in the bottom lands, and by the extreme exhaustion of the ladies, demanding some hours’ rest each day. The village was dark and quiet. Here and there the glimmer of a candle, now and then the call of a sentry, or the wail of a child broke the mysterious silence.
Ortiz appeared to know the ground perfectly. He drove without hesitation to a log house in which a faint thread of light was observable, and as he approached it he gave a long, peculiar whistle. The door was instantly thrown open, and, as the wagon stopped, two men stepped eagerly to it. In another instant the Senora was weeping in her husband’s arms, and Isabel laughing and crying and murmuring her sweet surprises into the ear of the delighted Luis. When their wraps had been removed from the wagon, Ortiz drove away, leaving Navarro and Antonia standing by the little pile of ladies’ luggage.
“I will take charge of all, Senorita. Alas! How weary you are!”
“It is nothing, Senor. Let me thank you for your great kindness.”
“Senorita, to be of service to you is my good fortune. If it were necessary, my life for your life, and I would die happy.”
She had given him her hand with her little speech of thanks, and he raised it to his lips. It was an act of homage that he might have offered to a saint, but in it Lopez unconsciously revealed to Antonia the secret love in his heart. For he stood in the glow of light from the open door, and his handsome face showed, as in a glass darkly, the tenderness and hopelessness of his great affection. She was touched by the discovery, and though she had a nature faithful as sunrising she could not help a feeling of kindly interest in a lover so reticent, so watchful, so forgetful of himself.
The log cabin in which they found shelter was at least a resting-place. A fire of cedar logs burned upon the hearth, and there was a bed in the room, and a few rude chairs covered with raw hide. But the Senora had a happy smile on her weary face. She ignored the poverty of her surroundings. She had her Roberto, and, for this hour at least, had forgiven fate.
Presently the coffee-pot was boiling, and Doctor Worth and Luis brought out their small store of corn-bread and their tin camp-cups, and the weary women ate and drank, and comforted themselves in the love and protection at their side. Doctor Worth sat by his wife, and gave Antonia his hand. Isabel leaned her pretty head against Luis, and listened with happy smiles to his low words:
“Charming little one, your lips are two crimson curtains. Between curtain and curtain my kiss is waiting. Give it to me.”
“Eyes of my soul, to-night the world begins again for me.”
“At this blessed hour of God, I am the happiest man he has made.”
“As for me, here in this dear, white hand I put my heart.”
Is there any woman who cannot imagine Isabel’s shy glances, and the low, sweet words in which she answered such delightful protestations? And soon, to add a keener zest to his happiness, Luis began to be a little jealous.
“With us is Dias de Bonilla. Do you remember, my beloved one, that you danced with him once?”
“How can you say a thing so offensive?”
“Yes, dear, at the Senora Valdez’s.”
“It may be. I have forgotten.”
“Too well he remembers. He has dared to sing a serenade to your memory—well, truly, he did not finish it, and but for the Senor Doctor, I should have taught him that Isabel is not a name for his lips to utter. Here, he may presume to come into your presence. Will you receive him with extreme haughtiness? It would be a great satisfaction to me.”
“The poor fellow! Why should I make him miserable? You should not be jealous, Luis.”
“If you smile on him—the least little smile—he will think you are in love with him. He is such a fool, I assure you. I am very distressed about this matter, my angel.”
“I will tell you Luis—when the myrtle-tree grows figs, and the fig-tree is pink with myrtle flowers, then I may fall in love with Dias de Bonilla—if I can take the trouble.”
No one heeded this pretty, extravagant talk. It was a thing apart from the more serious interests discussed by Doctor Worth and his wife and eldest daughter. And when Ortiz and Navarro joined the circle, the story of the fall of the Alamo was told again, and Luis forgot his own happiness, and wept tears of anger and pity for the dead heroes.
“This brutal massacre was on the morning of the sixth, you say, Navarro?”
“Last Sabbath morning, Senor. Mass was being offered in the churches, and Te Deums sung while it went on.”
“A mass to the devil it was,” said Ortiz.
“Now, I will tell you something. On the morning of the second, Thomas was in Washington. A convention sitting there declared, on that day, the independence of Texas, and fifty-five out of fifty-six votes elected General Houston Commander-in-Chief.”
“Houston! That is the name of victory! Gracias a Dios!” cried Navarro.
“It is probable that the news of this movement influenced Santa Anna to such barbarity.”
“It is his nature to be brutal.”
“True, Ortiz; yet I can imagine how this proclamation would incense him. On the morning of the sixth, the convention received the last express sent by poor Travis from the Alamo. It was of the most thrilling character, breathing the very spirit of patriotism and courage—and despair. In less than an hour, Houston, with a few companions, was on his way to the Alamo. At the same time he sent an express to Fannin, urging him to meet him on the Cibolo. Houston will be here to-morrow.”
“Then he will learn that all help is too late.”
But Houston had learned it in his own way before he reached Gonzales; for Travis had stated that as long as the Alamo could be held, signal guns would be fired at sunrising; and it is a well-authenticated fact that these guns were heard by trained ears for more than one hundred miles across the prairie. Houston, whose senses were keen as the Indians with whom he had long lived knew when he was within reach of the sound; and he rose very early, and with his ear close to the ground waited in intense anxiety for the dull, rumbling murmur which would tell him the Alamo still held out. His companions stood at some distance, still as statues, intently watching him. The sun rose. He had listened in vain; not the faintest sound did his ear detect.
“The Alamo has fired its last gun,” he said, on rejoining his companions.
“And the men, General?”
“They have died like men. You may be sure of that.”
At Gonzales he heard the particulars. And he saw that the news had exerted a depressing influence upon the troops there. He called them together. He spoke to them of the brutal tragedy, and he invested its horrors with the grandeur of eternal purpose and the glory of heroic sacrifice.
“They were soldiers,” he cried; “and they died like soldiers. Their names will be the morning stars of American history. They will live for ever in the red monument of the Alamo.” He looked like a lion, with a gloomy stare; his port was fierce, and his eyes commanded all he viewed. “Vengeance remains to us! We have declared our independence, and it must be maintained.”
He immediately sent off another express to Fannin; apprised him of the fall of the Alamo; ordered him to blow up Goliad and fall back upon Gonzales. Then he sent wagons into the surrounding country, to transport the women and children to the eastern settlements; for he knew well what atrocities would mark every mile of Santa Anna’s progress through the country.
These wagons, with their helpless loads, were to rendezvous at Peach Creek, ten miles from Gonzales; where also he expected Fannin and his eight hundred and sixty men to join him. This addition would make the American force nearly twelve hundred strong. Besides which, Fannin’s little army was of the finest material, being composed mostly of enthusiastic volunteers from Georgia and Alabama; young men, who, like Dare Grant and John Worth, were inspired with the idea of freedom, or the spread of Americanism, or the fanaticism of religious liberty of conscience—perhaps, even, with hatred of priestly domination. Houston felt that he would be sufficient for Santa Anna when the spirit of this company was added to the moral force of men driven from their homes and families to fight for the lands they had bought and the rights which had been guaranteed them.
So he watched the horizon anxiously for Fannin’s approach, often laying his ear to the ground to listen for what he could not see. And, impatient as he was for their arrival, the Senora was more so. She declared that her sufferings would be unendurable but for this hope. The one question on her lips, the one question in her eyes, was, “Are they coming?” And Antonia, though she did not speak of her private hopes, was equally anxious. Brother and lover were both very dear to her. And to have the whole family together would be in itself a great help. Whatever their deprivations and fatigues, they could comfort each other with their affection.
Every day wagon-loads of women and children joined the camp, and the march eastward was very slow. But no circumstance extols more loudly the bravery and tenderness of these American soldiers than the patience with which this encumbrance was endured. Men worn out with watching and foraging were never too weary to help some mother still more weary, or to carry some little child whose swollen feet would no longer aid it.
One night they rested at a little place on the Colorado. In one room of a deserted cabin Houston sat with Major Hockly, dictating to him a military dispatch. They had no candles, and Houston was feeding the fire with oak splinters, to furnish light enough for their necessity. In the other room, the Worth family were gathered. Antonia, in preparing for their journey, had wisely laid a small mattress and a couple of pillows in the wagon; and upon this mattress the Senora and Isabel were resting. Doctor Worth and Thomas sat by the fire talking of Fannin’s delay; and Antonia was making some corn-meal cakes for their supper.
When the Senora’s portion was given to her she put it aside, and lifted her eyes to Antonia’s face. They asked the question forever in her heart, “Is Jack coming?” and Antonia pitifully shook her head.
Then the poor woman seemed to have reached the last pitch of endurance. “Let me die!” she cried. “I can bear life no longer.” To Mary and the saints she appealed with a passionate grief that was distressing to witness. All the efforts of her husband and her children failed to sooth her; and, as often happens in a complication of troubles, she seized upon the most trifling as the text of her complaint.
“I cannot eat corn bread; I have always detested it. I am hungry. I am perishing for my chocolate. And I have no clothing. I am ashamed of myself. I thank the saints I have no looking-glass. Oh, Roberto! Roberto! What have you done to your Maria?”
“My dear wife! My dear, dear wife! Be patient a little longer. Think, love, you are not alone. There are women here far more weary, far more hungry; several who, in the confusion, have lost their little children; others who are holding dying babes in their arms.”
“Giver of all good! give me patience. I have to say to you that other women’s sorrows do not make me grateful for my own. And Santa Maria has been cruel to me. Another more cruel, who can find? I have confessed to her my heartache about Juan; entreated her to bring my boy to me. Has she done it?”
“My darling Maria.”
“Grace of God, Roberto! It is now the twenty-third of March; I have been seventeen days wandering with my daughters like very beggars. If only I had had the discretion to remain in my own house!”
“Maria, Lopez will tell you that Fray Ignatius and the brothers are in possession of it. He saw them walking about the garden reading their breviaries.”
At this moment General Houston, in the opposite room was dictating: “Before God, I have found the darkest hours of my life. For forty-eight hours I have neither eaten an ounce of anything, nor have I slept.” The Senora’s sobbing troubled him. He rose to close the door, and saw two men entering. One leaned upon the other, and appeared to be at the point of death.
“Where is there a doctor, General?”
“In that room, sir. Have you brought news of Fannin?”
“I have.”
“Leave your comrade with the doctor, and report.”
The entrance of the wounded man silenced the Senora. She turned her face to the wall and refused to eat. Isabel sat by her side and held her hand. The doctor glanced at it as he turned away. It had been so plump and dimpled and white. It was now very thin and white with exposure. It told him far better than complaining, how much the poor woman had suffered. He went with a sigh to his patient.
“Stabbed with a bayonet through the shoulder—hard riding from Goliad—no food—no rest—that tells the whole story, doctor.”
It was all he could say. A fainting fit followed. Antonia procured some stimulant, and when consciousness returned, assisted her father to dress the wound. Their own coffee was gone, but she begged a cup from some one more fortunate; and after the young man had drunk it, and had eaten a little bread, he was inclined to make light of his wound and his sufferings.
“Glad to be here at all,” he said. “I think I am the only one out of five hundred.”
“You cannot mean that you are of Fannin’s command?”
“I WAS of Fannin’s command. Every man in it has been shot. I escaped by a kind of miracle.”
The doctor looked at the Senora. She seemed to be asleep. “Speak low,” he said, “but tell me all.”
The man sat upon the floor with his back against the wall. The doctor stooped over him. Antonia and Isabel stood beside their father.
“We heard of Urrea’s approach at San Patricio. The Irish people of that settlement welcomed Urrea with great rejoicing. He was a Catholic—a defender of the faith. But the American settlers in the surrounding country fled, and Fannin heard that five hundred women and children, followed by the enemy, were trying to reach the fortress of Goliad. He ordered Major Ward, with the Georgia battalions, to go and meet the fugitives. Many of the officers entreated him not to divide his men for a report which had come by way of the faithless colony of San Patricio.
“But Fannin thought the risk ought to be taken. He took it, and the five hundred women and children proved to be a regiment of Mexican dragoons. They surrounded our infantry on every side, and after two days’ desperate fighting, the Georgia battalions were no more. In the meantime, Fannin got the express telling him of the fall of the Alamo, and ordering him to unite with General Houston. That might have been a possible thing with eight hundred and sixty men, but it was not possible with three hundred and sixty. However, we made the effort, and on the great prairie were attacked by the enemy lying in ambush there. Entirely encircled by them, yet still fighting and pressing onward, we defended ourselves until our ammunition gave out. Then we accepted the terms of capitulation offered by Urrea, and were marched back to Goliad as prisoners of war. Santa Anna ordered us all to be shot.”
“But you were prisoners of war?”
“Urrea laughed at the articles, and said his only intention in them was to prevent the loss of Mexican blood. Most of his officers remonstrated with with{sic} him, but he flew into a passion at Miralejes. ‘The Senor Presidente’s orders are not to be trifled with. By the Virgin of Guadelupe!’ he cried, ‘it would be as much as my own life was worth to disobey them.’
“It gave the Mexican soldiers pleasure to tell us these things, and though we scarcely believed such treachery possible, we were very uneasy. On the eighth day after the surrender, a lovely Sunday morning, we were marched out of the fort on pretence of sending us to Louisiana; according to the articles of surrender, and we were in high spirits at the prospect.
“But I noticed that we were surrounded by a double row of soldiers, and that made me suspicious. In a few moments, Fannin was marched into the centre, and told to sit down on a low stool. He felt that his hour had come. He took his watch and his purse, and gave them to some poor woman who stood outside lamenting and praying for the poor Americans. I shall never forget the calmness and brightness of his face. The Mexican colonel raised his sword, the drums beat, and the slaughter began. Fifty men at a time were shot; and those whom the guns missed or crippled, were dispatched with the bayonet or lance.”
“You escaped. How?”
“When the lips of the officer moved to give the order: Fire! I fell upon my face as if dead. As I lay, I was pierced by a bayonet through the shoulder, but I made no sign of life. After the execution, the camp followers came to rob the dead. A kind-hearted Mexican woman helped me to reach the river. I found a horse tied there, and I took it. I have been on the point of giving up life several times, but I met a man coming here with the news to Houston, and he helped me to hold out.”
The doctor was trembling with grief and anger, and he felt Antonia’s hand on his shoulder.
“My friend,” he whispered, “did you know JOHN WORTH?”
“Who did not know him in Fannin’s camp? Any of us would have been glad to save poor Jack; and he had a friend who refused to live without him.”
“Dare Grant?”
“That was the man, young lady. Grant was a doctor, and the Mexicans wanted doctors. They offered him his life for his services, but he would not have it unless his friend’s life also was spared. They were shot holding each other’s hands, and fell together. I was watching their faces at the moment. There wasn’t a bit of fear in them.”
The Senora rose, and came as swiftly as a spirit to them. She looked like a woman walking in her sleep. She touched the stranger. “I heard you. You saw Dare Grant die. But my boy! My boy! Where is my Juan?”
“Maria, darling.”
“Don’t speak, Roberto. Where is my Juan? Juan Worth?”
“Madam. I am sorry enough, God knows. Juan Worth—was shot.”
Then the wretched mother threw up her hands, and with an awful cry fell to the ground. It was hours ere she recovered consciousness, and consciousness only restored her to misery.
The distress of the father, the brother and sisters of the dead youth was submerged in the speechless despair of the mother. She could not swallow food; she turned away from the the{sic} sympathy of all who loved her. Even Isabel’s caresses were received with an apathy which was terrifying. With the severed curl of her boy’s hair in her fingers, she sat in tearless, voiceless anguish.
Poor Antonia, weighed down with the double loss that had come to her, felt, for the first time, as if their condition was utterly hopeless. The mental picture of her brother and her lover meeting their tragic death hand in hand, their youth and beauty, their courage and fidelity, was constantly before her. With all the purity and strength of her true heart, she loved Dare; but she did not for a moment wish that he had taken a different course. “It is just what I should have expected from him,” she said to Isabel. “If he had let poor Jack die alone, I could never have loved him in the same way again. But oh, Isabel, how miserable I am?”
“Sweet Antonia, I can only weep with you. Think of this; it was on last Sunday morning. Do you remember how sad you were?”
“I was in what seemed to be an unreasonable distress. I went away to weep. My very thoughts were tired with their sorrowful journeys up and down my mind, trying to find out hope and only meeting despair. Oh, my brave Jack! Oh, my dear Dare, what a cruel fate was your’s!”
“And mi madre, Antonia? I fear, indeed, that she will lose her senses. She will not speak to Thomas, nor even to me. She has not said a prayer since Jack’s death. She cannot sleep. I am afraid of her, Antonia.”
“To-night we are to move further east; perhaps the journey may waken her out of this trance of grief. I can see that our father is wretched about her; and Thomas wanders in and out of the room as if his heart was broken.”
“Thomas loved Jack. Luis told me that he sat with him and Lopez, and that he sobbed like a woman. But, also, he means a great revenge. None of the men slept last night. They stood by the camp-fires talking. Sometimes I went to the door and looked out. How awful they were in the blaze and darkness! I think, indeed, they could have conquered Santa Anna very easily.”
Isabel had not misjudged the spirit of the camp. The news of the massacre at Goliad was answered by a call for vengeance that nothing but vengeance could satisfy. On the following day Houston addressed his little army. He reminded them that they were the children of the heroes who fought for liberty at Yorktown, and Saratoga, and Bunker Hill. He made a soul-stirring review of the events that had passed; he explained to them their situation, and the designs of the enemy, and how he proposed to meet them.
His voice, loud as a trumpet with a silver sound, inspired all who heard it with courage. His large, bright visage, serious but hopeful, seemed to sun the camp. “They live too long,” he cried, “who outlive freedom. And I promise you that you shall have a full cup of vengeance. For every man that fell fighting at the Alamo, for every one treacherously slaughtered at Goliad, you shall be satisfied. If I seem to be flying before the enemy now, it is for his destruction. Three Mexican armies united, we cannot fight. We can fight them singly. And every mile we make them follow us weakens them, separates them, confuses them. The low lands of the Brazos, the unfordable streams, the morasses, the pathless woods, are in league with us. And we must place our women and children in safety. Even if we have to carry them to General Gaines and the United States troops, we must protect them, first of all. I believe that we shall win our freedom with our own hands; but if the worst come, and we have to fall back to the Sabine, we shall find friends and backers there. I know President Jackson, my old general, the unconquered Christian Mars! Do you think he will desert his countrymen? Never! If we should need help, he has provided it. And the freedom of Texas is sure and certain. It is at hand. Prepare to achieve it. We shall take up our march eastward in three hours.”
Ringing shouts answered the summons. The camp was in a tumult of preparation immediately; Houston was lending his great physical strength to the mechanical difficulties to be encountered. A crowd of men was around. Suddenly a woman touched him on the arm, and he straightened himself and looked at her.
“You will kill Santa Anna, General? You will kill this fiend who has escaped from hell! By the mother of Christ, I ask it.”
“My dear madam!”
He was so moved with pity that he could not for a moment or two give her any stronger assurance. For this suppliant, pallid and frenzied with sorrow, was the once beautiful Senora Worth. He looked at her hollow eyes, and shrunk form, and worn clothing, and remembered with a pang, the lovely, gracious lady clad in satin and lace, with a jewelled comb in her fine hair and a jewelled fan in her beautiful hands, and a wave of pity and anger passed like a flame over his face.
“By the memory of my own dear mother, Senora, I will make Santa Anna pay the full price of his cruelties.”
“Thank you, Senor”; and she glided away with her tearless eyes fixed upon the curl of black hair in her open palm.