"Are you sure there is no danger to-night, Antonia?"
"Not to-night. Say your prayer, and sleep in G.o.d"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 mult.i.tudes 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 G.o.d 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns 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 ma.s.sacre."
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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sing every moment."
"He ought to have been fighting. To help the living is better than to pray for the dead."
"Permit me to a.s.sure 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 n.o.bler gift of the two. This man robbed me of both." And G.o.d 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 ma.s.sive 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sumed, 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.