"Grace of G.o.d! Hear you, Senora! Hear you the rebellious and disobedient one! She has defied me to my face! She is near to being anathema! She is not your daughter! She is bewitched. Some evil spirit has possession of her. Let no one touch her or speak to her; it shall be a mortal sin."
Antonia fell at her mother"s knee. "Mi madre! I am your daughter, your Antonia, that you carried in your breast, and that loves you better than life. Permit me not to be accused of sin--to be called a devil. Mother, speak for me."
At this moment Isabel entered. Seeing the distress of her mother and sister she hastened to them; but Fray Ignatius stepped between, and extending his arms forbade her nearer approach.
"I forbid you to speak to your sister. I forbid you to touch her, to give her food, or water, or sympathy, until she has humbled herself, and obtained the forgiveness of her sin."
Then mother love stood up triumphant over superst.i.tion. "I and my daughter are the same," said the Senora, and she gave her hand to Antonia. "If she has sinned, we will bear the penance together; she and I together."
"I command you to stand apart. For the good of Antonia"s sinful soul, I command you to withdraw yourself from her."
"She is my daughter, father. I will bear the sin and the punishment with her. The Holy Mother will understand me. To her I will go."
The door of her room was at hand; she stepped swiftly to it, and putting her daughters before her, pa.s.sed in and turned the key.
The movement took the priest by surprise, and yet he was secretly satisfied with it. He had permitted himself to act with an imprudence most unusual. He had allowed the Senora to find out her own moral strength, and made a situation for her in which she had acted not only without his support, but against his authority.
"And yet," he muttered, "so much depends upon my persuading her into the convent; however, nothing now is to be done to-day, except to see Rachela. Saint Joseph! if these American heretics were only in my power!
What a long joy I would make of them! I would cut a throat--just one throat--every day of my life."
The hatred which could contemplate a vengeance so long drawn out was on his dark face; yet, it is but justice to say, that he sincerely believed it to be a holy hatred. The foes of the church, he regarded as the foes of G.o.d; and his anger as a just zeal for the honor of the Lord of Hosts.
Beside which, it included a far more tangible cause.
The acc.u.mulated treasures of the Missions; their gold and gems, their costly vestments and holy vessels, had been removed to the convent for safety. "These infidels of Americans give to women the honor they should give to G.o.d and Holy Church," he said to his brethren. "They will not suffer the Sisters to be molested; and our wealth will be safe wherever they are."
But this wealth was really so immense, that he believed it might be well to secure it still further, and knowing the position Dr. Worth held among his countrymen, he resolved to induce his wife and daughters to seek refuge within the convent. They were, in fact, to be held as hostages, for the protection of the property of the Church.
That he should fail in his plan was intolerable to him. He had been so confident of success. He imagined the smile on the face of Fray Sarapiam, and the warning against self-confidence he would receive from his superior; and he vowed by Saint Joseph that he would not suffer himself to be so mortified by three women.
Had he seen the Senora after the first excitement of her rebellion was over, he would have been satisfied of the validity of his authority, at least as regarded her. She flung herself at the foot of her altar, weeping and beating her breast in a pa.s.sion of self-accusation and contrition. Certainly, she had stood by her daughter in the presence of the priest; but in her room she withdrew herself from the poor girl as if she were a spiritual leper.
Antonia at a distance watched the self-abas.e.m.e.nt of her mother. She could not weep, but she was white as clay, and her heart was swollen with a sense of wrong and injustice, until breathing was almost suffocation. She looked with a piteous entreaty at Isabel. Her little sister had taken a seat at the extremity of the room away from her. She watched Antonia with eyes full of terror. But there was no sympathy in her face, only an uncertainty which seemed to speak to her--to touch her--and her mother was broken-hearted with shame and grief.
The anxiety was also a dumb one. Until the Senora rose from her knees, there was not a movement made, not a word uttered. The girls waited shivering with cold, sick with fear, until she spoke. Even then her words were cold as the wind outside:
"Go to your room, Antonia. You have not only sinned; you have made me sin also. Alas! Alas! Miserable mother! Holy Maria! pray for me."
"Mi madre, I am innocent of wrong. I have committed no sin. Is it a sin to obey my father? Isabel, darling, speak for me."
"But, then, what have you done, Antonia?"
"Fray Ignatius wants us to go to the convent. I refused. My father made me promise to do so. Is not our first duty to our father? Mother, is it not?
"No, no; to G.o.d--and to Fray Ignatius, as the priest of G.o.d. He says we ought to go to the convent. He knows best. We have been disobedient and wicked."
"Isabel, speak, my dear one. Tell mi madre if you think we should go."
There was a moment"s wavering, and then Isabel went to her mother and caressed her as only Isabel could caress her, and with the kisses, she said boldly: "Mi madre, we will not go to the convent. Not any of us. It is a dreadful place, even for a happy child. Oh, how cold and still are the Sisters! They are like stone figures that move about."
"Hush, child! I cannot listen to you! Go away! I must be alone. I must think. I must pray. Only the Mother of Sorrows can help me."
It was a miserable sequence to the happy night, and Antonia was really terrified at the position in which she found herself. If the Americans should fall, nothing but flight, or uncompromising submission to Fray Ignatius, remained for her. She knew only too well how miserable her life could be made; what moral torture could be inflicted; what spiritual servitude exacted. In a moment of time she had comprehended her danger, and her heart sank and sickened with a genuine physical terror.
The cold was still severe, and no one answered her call for wood. Isabel crouched, white and shivering, over the dying embers, and it was she who first uttered the fear Antonia had refused to admit to herself--"Suppose the servants are forbidden to wait upon us!"
"I will bring wood myself, dearest." She was greatly comforted by the word "us." She could almost have wept for joy of the sympathy it included. For thought is rapid in such crucial moments, and she had decided that even flight with her would be a kinder fate for Isabel, than the cruel tender mercies of the Sisters and the convent.
They could not talk much. The thought of their mother"s anguish, and of the separation put between them and their household, shocked and terrified them. Vainly they called for fuel. At dinner time no table was laid, and no preparations made for the meal. Then Antonia went into the kitchen. She took with her food, and cooked it. She brought wood into the parlor, and made up the fire. Fortunately, her northern education had given her plenty of resources for such emergencies. Two or three savory dishes were soon ready, and the small table set upon a warm, bright hearth.
The Senora had evidently not been included in the ban, for Rachela attended with ostentatious care to her comfort; but Isabel had rolled herself up in a wadded silk coverlet and gone to sleep. Antonia awakened her with a kiss. "Come, queridita, and get your dinner."
"But is it possible? I thought Fray Ignatius had forbidden it."
"He cannot forbid me to wait upon you, my darling one. And he cannot turn the flour into dust, and the meat into stone. There is a good dinner ready; and you are hungry, no doubt."
"For three hours I have been faint. Ah! you have made me a custard also!
You are a very comforter."
But the girl was still and sad, and Antonia was hard pressed to find any real comfort for her. For she knew that their only hope lay in the immediate attack of the American force, and its success; and she did not think it wise to hide from her sister the alternatives that lay before them if the Americans failed.
"I am afraid," said Isabel; "and so unhappy. A very sad business is life. I cannot think how any one can care to live."
"Remember Luis, and our father, and Jack, and Thomas, and our dear mother, who this morning stood between us and Fray Ignatius. Will you let this priest turn the sky black above you?"
"And also, men will fight. What for? Who can tell? The Americans want so much of everything. Naturally they do not get all they want. What do they do? Fight, and get killed. Then they go into the next world, and complain of people. As for Luis, I do not expect to see him again."
Fortunately, the norther moderated at sunset. Life then seemed so much more possible. Adverse elements intensify adverse fortune, and the physical suffering from the cold had also benumbed Antonia"s spirits, and made her less hopeful and less clear-visioned. But when she awoke at the gray dawn of the next day, she awoke with a different spirit. She had regained herself. She rose quietly, and looked out towards the city.
The black flag from the Alamo and the Missions hung above it. She looked at the ominous standards, and then the tears sprang to her eyes; she lifted her face and her hands to heaven, and a few words, swifter than light, sprang from her soul into the ear of the Eternal Father of Spirits.
The answer came with the pet.i.tion--came with the crack of rifle shots; precise, regular, unceasing.
"Oh G.o.d! I thank Thee! Lord of Hosts, Thou art a great mult.i.tude!
Isabel! Isabel! The Americans are attacking the city! Our father will fight his way back to his home! Fray Ignatius can not come to-day. Oh, I am so happy! So happy! Listen! How the Mexicans are shouting! They are cheering on the men! What a turmoil!"
"Jesu, Maria, have mercy!" cried Isabel, clasping her crucifix and falling upon her knees.
"Oh, Isabel, pray for our father, that his angel may overshadow him with strong wings."
"And Luis?"
"And Luis, and Thomas, and Jack, and Dare. There are prayers for them all, and love enough to make them. Hark! there are the drums, and the trumpets, and the gallop of the cavalry. Come, dearest, let us go to our mother. To day, no one will remember Fray Ignatius."
CHAPTER IX. THE STORMING OF THE ALAMO.
"Now, hearts, Be ribbed with iron for this one attempt: Set ope" your sluices, send the vigorous blood Through every active limb for our relief."