There were one hundred and eighty-seven persons within the walls of the fort that night. Six of these were non-combatants, including two American women, a Mexican woman, a negro slave, and two young children.
The keepers of the secret of the cavern of Huitzilopochtli held their conference. After it was concluded they selected, with careful deliberation, a number of trustworthy men, to whom, under oath, they communicated the precious information. If any or all of them should survive, a full report was to be in like manner made to President Houston and other Texan patriots who were named.
"That"s all we can do," remarked Bowie, after his precautions had been taken. "I don"t want that expedition to die with me. If any of these fellows are killed early in the fight, we must put in others in their places."
"All right," replied Crockett. "The Montezumas have stuck to that stuff long enough. But, "cordin" to Castro, we"ve been and gone and put a death-warrant on every one of those men. I was thinking "bout that."
"You"d think!" exclaimed Bowie, "if you"d seen what I did. Do you know, there was the queerest kind of roar coming up out of that chasm.
I don"t wonder the blood-thirsty heathen were superst.i.tious about it."
"I"d like to hear it some day," said Crockett. "But thar"s a kind of ringing in my ears, anyhow. Perhaps it"s from hearing so much cannon music."
In the cavern of Huitzilopochtli that night, the treasure-chamber of the Montezumas, the voice from the lower deep was calling more loudly than usual.
"The G.o.ds are disturbed," grumbled the old men before the altar. "We have nothing to give them. They grow angry. What shall we do for the hunger of the G.o.ds?"
Louder, at intervals, then seeming to die away and begin again, arose the mysterious reverberation, while the old devotees paused from their chanting to turn and glare into each other"s ferocious faces.
It was only a mute inquiry. If no other supply should be provided, to which of them would belong the next voluntary plunge into the gulf?
They were fewer than they once had been. There might be none to take their places. It would not do for the altar of Huitzilopochtli to be left without servitors and the treasure without guardians. Some of them must remain until the return of the G.o.ds, for these were surely to come again to claim their own.
Why, however, should they at this time feel so strong a hunger and send up so vehement an outcry? Had they heard that sacrifices were about to come? If so, where were the expected victims, and whose hand should bring them?
It was a question to which no answer could be given, but the sacrificial fire was heaped with fuel until its radiance flickered like a smile of satisfaction upon the vast, dark face on the wall, and the priests chanted on with a croaking sound like that of many ravens.
No morning ever came into that cavern, but it dawned brightly upon the outside world,--the morning of the 6th of March, 1836.
The camp of the Mexican army was astir at an early hour and the artillery began its practice-work upon the shattered wall. Every gun was aimed with care, for even Santa Anna was using up the last of his cannon-shot.
There was apparently nothing doing in the fort. It had a lazy look, and the rangers hardly spoke to one another as they went about their routine duties. They all cleaned their rifles carefully, counted their bullets, measured their charges of powder, and now and then they would stroll to loop-holes for looks at the Mexican camp.
"They are forming for the attack," was the word that pa.s.sed from man to man, while the iron missiles, fairly well directed, fell fast upon the frail barrier which had been made at the breach.
"There "ll a good many men drap in that thar gap," remarked Crockett.
"But they won"t all try to come in by that way."
The Mexican commander had indeed learned something by experience. His storming columns were four in number, and only one of them advanced toward the broken wall. Another was evidently to approach by the front, where the ruins of the gate had been strongly propped up during the night. The third and fourth formed in front of the convent yard wall and the church, and their ladders would be quite long enough to carry them over the former.
"We"ve got to divide," said Travis. "You hold the convent and church side, Bowie. They could pick their way in, or blast a hole, if you"d let "em. We"ll take care of the rest."
Only a few men could be spared to any of the several posts of danger.
The Mexican batteries ceased. The half-drunken infantry came on at a run. The last cartridges were rapidly and effectively fired from the Texan cannon. Down went their enemies by scores, and it looked as if the previous results were to be repeated, but Sergeant Daly now stepped back from the gun he had been working and held up a hand.
"All gone!" exclaimed Travis. "Come on, men, this four-pounder is loaded yet. Let"s bring it to bear upon the breach and give it to them as they come through."
The guns on the church, three in number, had also been busy, but they now ceased their thunder. Down went the gate before the blows of the Mexican pioneers. Fast fell the foremost a.s.sailants in the fatal breach, but just as Travis had swung around his cannon a musketeer from the gate was within twenty feet of him. He did not miss. The calm, courageous smile upon the face of the heroic commander died away, for the flying lead pa.s.sed through his brain.
Numbers counted now, for the enemy were within the walls, and the remaining struggle was hand-to-hand.
Brave enough were the Mexicans, but they were learning terrible lessons of the superior personal prowess of their victims. Not a man asked for quarter. To be only wounded and to fall was to be bayoneted upon the ground. Five who were disabled did indeed take refuge in the cook-room, barring its door and fighting still.
Half-way between the convent and the church a thick group of swordsmen and lancers closed around the old bear hunter, but he did not die alone. Near him lay half a dozen of his foemen, and just beyond them fell his old friends Smith and Bonham, hastening to die at his side.
The last squad of riflemen stood in front of the main inside entrance of the fort building, plying their rifles steadily, but the surge of steel points poured towards them.
"Boys!" exclaimed Bowie at their head, "I"m hurt in the leg. I can"t stand. I must do the rest of it lying down."
His empty rifle fell from his hand as he climbed a stairway near him.
Bleeding and faint, he staggered on to the end of a pa.s.sage, and he threw himself upon the couch in the end room, exclaiming,--
"I saw them fall! Not a man is left to tell the secret of the cavern!"
It was but a moment, and then the pa.s.sageway swarmed with furious Mexicans. From room to room they went, plying their bayonets alike upon the living and the dead. As they entered the corner room, however, a dark, stern, terrible shape half rose from a couch with a Derringer in its right hand. Swift reports followed each other as rapidly as the tickings of a clock till Bowie"s belt was empty. The floor was strewn with corpses, and then, as yet more of his enemies poured in, he gained his feet with a last effort, knife in hand. It was but for a moment. It was the fierce agony of a dying hero. The bayonets did their work, and as the stalwart form of the dead borderer sank heavily upon the floor, a low voice in the door-way exclaimed,--
"Big Knife! Heap brave! Great chief! Red Wolf go."
[Ill.u.s.tration: A DARK, STERN, TERRIBLE SHAPE HALF ROSE FROM A COUCH]
The Alamo had fallen!
The five men in the cook-room surrendered to Castrillon when their last cartridge was gone on promise of protection, but they were sabred at once on being taken before Santa Anna, who now stood among his staff in the middle of the plaza.
"_Caramba_! Kill them!" was all the reply he made to the protests of Castrillon.
The six non-combatants were spared to tell the story of the defence and the ma.s.sacre, but the victory had been a costly one. The army of Santa Anna had been so shattered that, when he met Sam Houston and his volunteers, not many days later, at San Jacinto, his eighteen hundred men were utterly defeated by about a third of their number of Texans, and he lost not only his army of invasion but his control of Mexican affairs, and Texas itself.
Dark indeed, that day, was the cavern of Huitzilopochtli, and all through the early hours the moaning sound came up from the chasm. Then it grew louder, stronger, and the worshippers fled from its brink to the altar. They had no victims to offer. Their chant was almost drowned by the ominous roar, and the hungry anger of the G.o.ds seemed to increase momentarily. Then it began to die away,--away,--until at last a kind of shout came up, and there was a silence. Excepting Red Wolf and his father, there were now no living persons, outside of the votaries of the old faith, who had any clue to the hidden treasure and the underground temple of the lost G.o.ds of Mexico. The daring Texan who had learned the secret had fallen fighting to the end, the last man of the garrison of the Alamo.
THE END.