“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.”
“Now they begin the tragic play,
And with their smoky cannon banish day.”
“Endure and conquer. God will soon dispose
To future good our past and present woes:
Resume your courage, and dismiss your care;
An hour will come with pleasure to relate
Your sorrows past, as benefits of Fate.”
The Senora was already dressed. She turned with a face full of fear and
anger to her daughters as they entered her room--
“These American diablos! They are attacking the city. They will take
it--that is to be expected--who can fight diablos? And what is to become
of us? Oh, Antonia! Why did you prevent Fray Ignatius? We might now have
been safe in the convent”, and Rachela nodded her head in assent, with
an insufferable air of reproof and toleration.
Antonia saw that the time had not yet come for pleading her own cause.
She left Isabel with her mother. The Senora’s breakfast was waiting,
and she offered to share it with her youngest daughter. Antonia went
downstairs to prepare for herself some coffee. She was surprised and
pleased to find it made. For a certain thought had come to Molly in the
night and she had acted upon it--
“The praist is a strange praist, and almost as black as a nagur; and I’d
be a poor body, I think, to let him be meddling wid my work. Shure,
I never heard of the like of such interfering in Ireland, nor in the
States at all!” Then turning to the Mexican cook, Manuel--“You may lave
the fire alone till I bees done wid it.”
“Fray Ignatius will not give you absolution if you disobey him.”
“He can be kaping the same then. There is an Irish praist at San
Patricio, and I’ll be going there for my absolution; and I’ll be getting
none any nearer that an Irish soul will be a pin the better for. I’ll
say that, standing in the church, to the saints themselves; and so be
aff wid you and let the fire alone till I bees done wid it.”
But it was not Molly’s place to serve the food she cooked, and she did
not trouble herself about the serving. When she had asserted her right
to control her own work, and do it or neglect it as it seemed good to
herself alone, she was satisfied. Over Antonia--who was at least half
a Mexican--she acknowledged a Mexican priest to have authority; and she
had no intention of interfering between Fray Ignatius and his lawful
flock. She was smoking her pipe by the fire when Antonia entered the
kitchen, and she neither lifted her eyes nor spoke to her.
Against such unreasonable isolation Antonia could not help a feeling of
anger; and she heard with satisfaction the regular crack of the rifles.
Her thought was--“They will make these people find their tongues also,
very soon.” She was exceedingly anxious for information; and, as she ate
her roll and drank her coffees she was considering how they could gain
it. For even if Fray Ignatius were able to visit them, his report would
be colored by his prejudices and his desires, and could not be relied
on.
Her heart fluttered and sank; she was hot and cold, sanguine and
fearful. She could not endure the idea of a suspense unrelieved by
any reliable word. For the siege might be a long one. San Antonio was
strongly walled and defended. The Alamo fortress stood in its centre.
It had forty-eight cannon, and a garrison of a thousand men. Before it
could be reached, the city had to be taken; and the inhabitants would in
the main fight desperately for their homes.
As soon as she was alone with her mother, she pointed out these facts to
her. “Let me write to Lopez Navarro, mi madre. He is a friend.”
“Of the Americans! Si.”
“Of freedom. He will send us word.”
“Are you forgetful of what is moral and respectable, Antonia? That a
young lady should write to Lopez Navarro--a man that is unmarried--is
such a thing as never before happened! He would think the world had come
to an end, or worse.”
“Dear mother! In a time of trouble like this, who would think wrong of
us? Surely you might write.”
“As you say, Antonia. Tell me, then, who will take the letter.”
“The peon Ortiz will take it. This morning he brought in wood and
kindled the fire, and I saw in his face the kindness of his heart.”
After some further persuasion, the Senora agreed to write; and Ortiz
undertook the commission, with a nod of understanding. Then there
remained nothing to be done but to listen and to watch. Fortunately,
however, Rachela found the centre of interest among the servants in
the kitchen; and the Senora and her daughter could converse without
espionage.
Just after sunset a letter arrived from Navarro. Rachela lingered in the
room to learn its contents. But the Senora, having read them, passed the
letter to Antonia and Isabel; and Rachela saw with anger that Antonia,
having carefully considered it, threw it into the fire. And yet the news
it brought was not unfavorable:
“SENORA MARIA FLORES WORTH:
“I send this on December the fifth, in the year of our
Blessed Lord and Lady 1835. It is my honor and pleasure to
tell you that the Americans, having performed miracles of
valor, reached the Plaza this afternoon. Here the main body
of the Mexican troops received them, and there has been severe
fighting. At sunset, the Mexicans retreated within the Alamo.
The Texans have taken possession of the Veramendi House, and
the portion of the city surrounding it. There has been a
great slaughter of our poor countrymen. I charge myself
whenever I pass the Plaza, to say a paternoster for the souls
who fell there. Senora Maria Flores Worth, I kiss your hands.
I kiss also the hands of the Senorita Antonia, and the hands
of the Senorita Isabel, and I make haste to sign myself,
“Your servant,
“LOPEZ NAVARRO.”
This little confidence between mother and daughters restored the tone
of feeling between them. They had something to talk of, personal
and exclusive. In the fear and uncertainty, they forgot priestly
interdiction and clung to each other with that affection which is the
strength of danger and the comforter of sorrow.
On the following day the depression deepened. The sounds of battle
were closer at hand. The Mexican servants had an air of insolence and
triumph. Antonia feared for the evening’s report--if indeed Navarro
should be able to send one. She feared more when she saw the messenger
early in the afternoon. “Too early is often worse than too late.” The
proverb shivered upon her trembling lips as she took the letter from
him. The three women read it together, with sinking hearts:
“SENORA MARIA FLORES WORTH:
“This on the sixth of December, in the year of our Blessed
Lord and Lady 1835. The brave, the illustrious Colonel Milam
is dead. I watched him three hours in to-day’s fight. A man
so calm was inconceivable. He was smiling when the ball
struck him--when he fell. The Texans, after his loss, retired
to their quarters. This was at the hour of eleven. At the
hour of one, the Mexicans made another sortie from the Alamo.
The Texans rushed to meet them with an incredible vengeance.
Their leader was General Burleson. He showed himself to
General Cos in a sheet of flame. Such men are not to be
fought. General Cos was compelled to retire to the Alamo.
The battle is over for to-day. On this earth the soul has but
a mortal sword. The water in the river is red with
blood. The Plaza is covered with the dead and the dying. I
have the honor to tell you that these ‘miserables’ are being
attended to by the noble, the charitable Senor Doctor Worth.
As I write, he is kneeling among them. My soul adores his
humanity. I humbly kiss your hands, Senora, and the hands of
your exalted daughters.
“LOPEZ NAVARRO.
Until midnight this letter furnished the anxious, loving women with an
unceasing topic of interest. The allusion to her husband made the Senora
weep. She retired to her oratory and poured out her love and her fears
in holy salutations, in thanksgivings and entreaties.
The next morning there was an ominous lull in the atmosphere. As men
run backward to take a longer leap forward, so both armies were taking
breath for a fiercer struggle. In the Worth residencia the suspense
was becoming hourly harder to endure. The Senora and her daughters
were hardly conscious of the home life around them. In that wonderful
folk-speech which so often touches foundation truths, they were not all
there. Their nobler part had projected itself beyond its limitations. It
was really in the struggle. It mattered little to them now whether food
was cooked or not. They were neither hungry nor sleepy. Existence was
prayer and expectation.
Just before sunset Antonia saw Don Lopez coming through the garden. The
Senora, accompanied by her daughters, went to meet him. His face was
perplexed and troubled:
“General Cos has been joined by Ugartechea with three hundred men,” he
said. “You will see now that the fight will be still more determined.”
And before daylight broke on the morning of the 5th, the Americans
attacked the Alamo. The black flag waved above them; the city itself had
the stillness of death; but for hours the dull roar and the clamorous
tumult went on without cessation. The Senora lay upon her bed
motionless, with hands tightly locked. She had exhausted feeling, and
was passive. Antonia and Isabel wandered from window to window, hoping
to see some token which would indicate the course of events.
Nothing was visible but the ferocious flag flying out above the
desperate men fighting below it. So black! So cruel and defiant it
looked! It seemed to darken and fill the whole atmosphere around it.
And though the poor women had not dared to whisper to each other what
it said to them, they knew in their own hearts that it meant, if the
Americans failed, the instant and brutal massacre of every prisoner.
The husband and father were under its inhuman shadow. So most probably
were Darius Grant and Luis Alveda. It was even likely that Jack might
have returned ere the fight, and was with the besiegers. Every time they
went to the window, it filled their hearts with horror.
In the middle of the afternoon it suddenly disappeared. Antonia watched
it breathlessly. Several times before, it had been dropped by some
American rifle; but this time it was not as speedily replaced. In a
few minutes she uttered a shrill cry. It was in a voice so strained,
so piercing, so unlike her own, that the Senora leaped from her bed.
Antonia turned to meet her mother with white, parted lips. She was
speechless with excess of feeling, but she pointed to the Alamo. The
black flag was no longer there! A white one was flying in its place.
“IT IS A SURRENDER!” gasped Antonia. “IT IS A SURRENDER!” and, as if
in response to her words, a mighty shout and a simultaneous salute of
rifles hailed the emblem of victory.
An hour afterwards a little Mexican boy came running with all his speed.
He brought a few lines from Don Lopez. They had evidently been written
in a great hurry, and on a piece of paper torn from his pocket-book,
but oh! how welcome they were. The very lack of formality gave to them a
certain hurry of good fortune:
“May you and yours be God’s care for many years to come,
Senora! The Mexicans have surrendered the Alamo, and asked
for quarter. These noble-minded Americans have given it. The
Senor Doctor will bring you good news. I rejoice with you.
“LOPEZ NAVARRO.”
Death and captivity had been turned away from their home, and the
first impulse of these pious, simple-hearted women was a prayer of
thanksgiving. Then Antonia remembered the uncomfortable state of the
household, and the probable necessities of the men coming back from
mortal strife and the shadow of death.
She found that the news had already changed the domestic atmosphere.
Every servant was attending to his duty. Every one professed a great joy
in the expected arrival of the Senor. And what a happy impetus the hope
gave to her own hands! How delightful it was to be once more arranging
the evening meal, and brightening the rooms with fire and light!
Soon after dark they heard the swing of the garden gate, the tramp of
rapid footsteps, and the high-pitched voices of excited men. The door
was flung wide. The Senora forgot that it was cold. She went with
outstretched arms to meet her husband. Dare and Luis were with him.
They were black with the smoke of battle. Their clothing was torn and
bloodstained; the awful light of the fierce struggle was still upon
their faces. But they walked like heroes, and the glory of the deeds
they had done crowned with its humanity, made them appear to the women
that loved them but a little lower than the angels.
Doctor Worth held his wife close to his heart and kissed her tears of
joy away, and murmured upon her lips the tenderest words a woman ever
hears--the words a man never perfectly learns till he has loved his wife
through a quarter of a century of change, and sorrow, and anxiety.
And what could Antonia give Dare but the embrace, the kiss, the sweet
whispers of love and pride, which were the spontaneous outcome of both
hearts?
There was a moment’s hesitation on the part of Luis and Isabel. The
traditions of caste and country, the social bonds of centuries, held
them. But Isabel snapped them asunder. She looked at Luis. His eyes were
alight with love for her, his handsome face was transfigured with the
nobility of the emotions that possessed him. In spite of his disordered
dress, he was incomparably handsome. When he said, “Angel mio!” and bent
to kiss her hand, she lifted her lovely face to his, she put her arms
around his neck, she cried softly on his breast, whispering sweet little
diminutives of affection and pride. Such hours as followed are very rare
in this life; and they are nearly always bought with a great price--paid
for in advance with sorrow and anxiety, or earned by such faithful
watching and patient waiting as touches the very citadel of life.
The men were hungry; they had eaten nothing all day. How delicious was
their meal! How happy and merry it made the Senora, and Antonia, and
Isabel, to see them empty dish after dish; to see their unaffected
enjoyment of the warm room, and bright fire, of their after-dinner
coffee and tobacco. There was only one drawback to the joy of the
reunion--the absence of Jack.
“His disappointment will be greater than ours,” said Jack’s father. “To
be present at the freeing of his native city, and to bring his first
laurels to his mother, was the brightest dream Jack had. But Jack is a
fine rider, and is not a very fine marksman; so it was decided to send
him with Houston to the Convention. We expected him back before the
attack on the city began. Indeed, we were waiting for orders from the
Convention to undertake it.”
“Then you fought without orders, father?”
“Well, yes, Antonia--in a way. Delays in war are as dangerous as in
love. We were surrounded by dragoons, who scoured the country in every
direction to prevent our foraging. San Antonio HAD to be taken. Soon
done was well done. On the third of December Colonel Milam stepped in
front of the ranks, and asked if two hundred of the men would go with
him and storm the city. The whole eleven hundred stepped forward, and
gave him their hands and their word. From them two hundred of the finest
marksmen were selected.”
“I have to say that was a great scene, mi Roberto.”
“The greater for its calmness, I think. There was no shouting, no
hurrahing, no obvious enthusiasm. It was the simple assertion of serious
men determined to carry out their object.”
“And you stormed San Antonio with two hundred men, father?”
“But every man was a picked man. A Mexican could not show his head above
the ramparts and live. We had no powder and ball to waste; and I doubt
if a single ball missed its aim.”
“A Mexican is like a Highland Scot in one respect,” said Dare; “he
fights best with steel. They are good cavalry soldiers.”
“There are no finer cavalry in the world than the horsemen from Santa
Fe, Dare. But with powder and ball Mexicans trust entirely to luck; and
luck is nowhere against Kentucky sharpshooters. Their balls very seldom
reached us, though we were close to the ramparts; and we gathered them
up by thousands, and sent them back with our double-Dupont powder. THEN
they did damage enough. In fact, we have taken the Alamo with Mexican
balls.”
“Under what flag did you fight, Roberto?”
“Under the Mexican republican flag of eighteen twenty-four; but indeed,
Maria, I do not think we had one in the camp. We were destitute of
all the trappings of war--we had no uniforms, no music, no flags, no
positive military discipline. But we had one heart and mind, and one
object in view; and this four days’ fight has shown what men can do, who
are moved by a single, grand idea.”
The Senora lay upon a sofa; the doctor sat by her side. Gradually their
conversation became more low and confidential. They talked of their
sons, and their probable whereabouts; of all that the Senora and her
daughters had suffered from the disaffection of the servants; and the
attitude taken by Fray Ignatius. And the doctor noticed, without much
surprise, that his wife’s political sympathies were still in a state of
transition and uncertainty. She could not avoid prophesying the speedy
and frightful vengeance of Mexico. She treated the success at San
Antonio as one of the accidents of war. She looked forward to an early
renewal of hostilities.
“My countrymen are known to me, Roberto,” she said, with a touch that
was almost a hope of vengeance. “They have an insurmountable honor; they
will revenge this insult to it in some terrible way. If the gracious
Maria holds not the hands of Santa Anna, he will utterly destroy the
Americans! He will be like a tiger that has become mad.”
“I am not so much afraid of Santa Anna as of Fray Ignatius. Promise me,
my dear Maria, that you will not suffer yourself or your children to be
decoyed by him into a convent. I should never see you again.”
The discussion on this subject was long and eager. Antonia, talking
with Dare a little apart, could not help hearing it and feeling great
interest in her father’s entreaties, even though she was discussing
with Dare the plans for their future. For Dare had much to tell his
betrothed. During the siege, the doctor had discovered that his intended
son-in-law was a fine surgeon. Dare had, with great delicacy, been quite
reticent on this subject, until circumstances made his assistance a
matter of life and death; and the doctor understood and appreciated the
young man’s silence.
“He thinks I might have a touch of professional jealousy--he thinks I
might suspect him of wanting a partnership as well as a wife; he wishes
to take his full share of the dangers of war, without getting behind the
shield of his profession”; these feelings the doctor understood, and he
passed from Fray Ignatius to this pleasanter topic, gladly.
He told the Senora what a noble son they were going to have; he said,
“when the war is over, Maria, my dear, he shall marry Antonia.”
“And what do you say, Roberto, if I should give them the fine house on
the Plaza that my brother Perfecto left me?”
“If you do that you will be the best mother in the world, Maria. I
then will take Dare into partnership. He is good and clever; and I am a
little weary of work. I shall enjoy coming home earlier to you. We will
go riding and walking, and our courting days will begin again.”
“Maria Santissima! How delightful that will be, Roberto! And as for our
Isabel, shall we not make her happy also? Luis should have done as
his own family have done; a young man to go against his mother and his
uncles, that is very wicked! but, if we forgive that fault, well, then,
Luis is as good as good bread.”
“I think so. He began the study of the law. He must finish it. He must
learn the American laws also. I am not a poor man, Maria. I will give
Isabel the fortune worthy of a Yturbide or a Flores--a fortune that will
make her very welcome to the Alvedas.”
The Senora clasped her husband’s hand with a smile. They were sweetening
their own happiness with making the happiness of their children. They
looked first at Antonia. She sat with Dare, earnestly talking to him in
a low voice. Dare clasped in his own the dear little hand that had been
promised to him. Antonia bent toward her lover; her fair head rested
against his shoulder. Isabel sat in a large chair, and Luis leaned on
the back of it, stooping his bright face to the lovely one which
was sometimes dropped to hide her blushes, and sometimes lifted with
flashing eyes to answer his tender words.
“My happiness is so great, Roberto, I am even tired of being happy. Call
Rachela. I must go to sleep. To-night I cannot even say an ave.”
“God hears the unspoken prayer in your heart, Maria; and to-night let me
help you upstairs. My arm is stronger than Rachela’s.”
She rose with a little affectation of greater weakness and lassitude
than she really felt. But she wished to be weak, so that her Roberto
might be strong--to be quite dependent on his care and tenderness. And
she let her daughters embrace her so prettily, and then offered her hand
to Dare and Luis with so much grace and true kindness that both young
men were enchanted.
“It is to be seen that they are gentlemen,” she said, as she went slowly
upstairs on her husband’s arm--“and hark! that is the singing of Luis.
What is it he says?” They stood still to listen. Clear and sweet
were the chords of the mandolin, and melodiously to them Luis was
protesting--
“Freedom shall have our shining blades!
Our hearts are yours, fair Texan maids!”