THE BLACK TRAGEDY
While the raw recruits crowded one another for breath in the dark
vaulted church of Goliad, a little swarthy man in a gorgeous uniform sat
dining luxuriously in the best house in San Antonio, far to the
northwest. Some of his favorite generals were around him, Castrillon,
Gaona, Almonte, and the Italian Filisola.
The "Napoleon of the West" was happy. His stay in San Antonio, after the
fall of the Alamo, had been a continuous triumph, with much feasting and
drinking and music. He had received messages from the City of Mexico,
his capital, and all things there went well. Everybody obeyed his
orders, although they were sent from the distant and barbarous land of
Texas.
While they dined, a herald, a Mexican cavalrymen who had ridden far,
stopped at the door and handed a letter to the officer on guard:
"For the most illustrious president, General Santa Anna," he said.
The officer went within and, waiting an opportune moment, handed the
letter to Santa Anna.
"The messenger came from General Urrea," he said.
Santa Anna, with a word of apology, because he loved the surface forms
of politeness, opened and read the letter. Then he uttered a cry of joy.
"We have all the Texans now!" he exclaimed. "General Urrea has taken
Fannin and his men. There is nothing left in Texas to oppose us."
The generals uttered joyful shouts and drank again to their illustrious
leader. The banquet lasted long, but after it was over Santa Anna
withdrew to his own room and dictated a letter to his secretary. It was
sealed carefully and given to a chosen messenger, a heavy-browed and
powerful Mexican.
"Ride fast to Goliad with that letter," said Santa Anna.
The messenger departed at once. He rode a strong horse, and he would
find fresh mounts on the way. He obeyed the orders of the general
literally. He soon left San Antonio far behind, and went on hour after
hour, straight toward Goliad. Now and then he felt the inside of his
tunic where the letter lay, but it was always safe. Three or four times
he met parties of Mexicans, and he replied briefly to their questions
that he rode on the business of the most illustrious president, General
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Once, on the second day, he saw two
horsemen, whom his trained eyes told him to be Texan hunters.
The messenger sheered off into a patch of timber, and waited until the
hunters passed out of sight. Had they seen him much might have changed,
a terrible story might have been different, but, at that period, the
stars in their courses were working against the Texans. Every accident,
every chance, turned to the advantage of their enemies.
The messenger emerged from the timber, and went on at the same steady
gait toward Goliad. He was riding his fourth horse now, having changed
every time he met a Mexican detachment, and the animal was fresh and
strong. The rider himself, powerful by nature and trained to a life in
the saddle, felt no weariness.
The scattered houses of Goliad came into view, by and by, and the
messenger, giving the magic name of Santa Anna, rode through the lines.
He inquired for General Urrea, the commander, but the general having
gone to Victoria he was directed to Colonel Portilla, who commanded in
his absence. He found Portilla sitting in a patio with Colonel Garay,
the younger Urrea and several other Mexican officers. The messenger
saluted, drew the letter from his pocket and presented it to Colonel
Portilla.
"From the most illustrious president and commander-in-chief, General
Santa Anna," he said.
Portilla broke the seal and read. As his eyes went down the lines, a
deep flush crept through the tan of his face, and the paper trembled in
his hands.
"I cannot do it! I cannot do it! Read, gentlemen, read!" he cried.
Urrea took the extended letter from his hand and read it aloud. Neither
his voice nor his hand quivered as he read, and when he finished he said
in a firm voice:
"The orders of the president must be obeyed, and you, Colonel Portilla,
must carry them out at once. All of us know that General Santa Anna does
not wish to repeat his commands, and that his wrath is terrible."
"It is so! It is so!" said Portilla hopelessly, and Garay also spoke
words of grief. But Urrea, although younger and lower in rank, was firm,
even exultant. His aggressive will dominated the others, and his
assertion that the wrath of Santa Anna was terrible was no vain warning.
The others began to look upon him as Santa Anna's messenger, the
guardian of his thunderbolts, and they did not dare to meet his eye.
"We will go outside and talk about it," said Portilla, still much
agitated.
When they left the patio their steps inevitably took them toward the
church. The high note of a flute playing a wailing air came to them
through the narrow windows. It was "Home, Sweet Home," played by a boy
in prison. The Mexicans did not know the song, but its solemn note was
not without an appeal to Portilla and Garay. Portilla wiped the
perspiration from his face.
"Come away," he said. "We can talk better elsewhere."
They turned in the opposite direction, but Urrea did not remain with
them long. Making some excuse for leaving them he went rapidly to the
church. He knew that his rank and authority would secure him prompt
admission from the guards, but he stopped, a moment, at the door. The
prisoners were now singing. Three or four hundred voices were joined in
some hymn of the north that he did not know, some song of the
English-speaking people. The great volume of sound floated out, and was
heard everywhere in the little town.
Urrea was not moved at all. "Rebels and filibusters!" he said in
Spanish, under his breath, but fiercely. Then he ordered the door
unbarred, and went in. Two soldiers went with him and held torches
aloft.
The singing ceased when Urrea entered. Ned was standing against the
wall, and the young Mexican instinctively turned toward him, because he
knew Ned best. There was much of the tiger cat in Urrea. He had the same
feline grace and power, the same smoothness and quiet before going into
action.
"You sing, you are happy," he said to Ned, although he meant them all.
"It is well. You of the north bear misfortune well."
"We do the best we can wherever we are," replied young Fulton, dryly.
"The saints themselves could do no more," said the Mexican.
Urrea was speaking in English, and his manner was so friendly and gentle
that the recruits crowded around him.
"When are we to be released? When do we get our parole?" they asked.
Urrea smiled and held up his hands. He was all sympathy and generosity.
"All your troubles will be over to-morrow," he said, "and it is fitting
that they should end on such a day, because it is Palm Sunday."
The recruits gave a cheer.
"Do we go down to the coast?" one of them asked.
Urrea smiled with his whole face, and with the gesture of his hands,
too. But he shook his head.
"I can say no more," he replied. "I am not the general, and perhaps I
have said too much already, but be assured, brave foes, that to-morrow
will end your troubles. You fought us gallantly. You fought against
great odds, and you have my sympathy."
Ned had said no more. He was looking at Urrea intently. He was trying,
with all the power of his own mind and soul, to read this man's mind and
soul. He was trying to pierce through that Spanish armor of smiles and
gestures and silky tones and see what lay beneath. He sought to read the
real meaning of all these polite phrases. His long and powerful gaze
finally drew Urrea's own.
A little look of fear crept into Urrea's eyes, as the two antagonists
stared at each other. But it was only for a few minutes. Then he looked
away with a shrug and a laugh.
"Now I leave you," he said to the men, "and may the saints bring you
much happiness. Do not forget that to-morrow is Palm Sunday, and that it
is a good omen."
He went out, taking the torchbearers with him, and although it was dark
again in the vaulted church, the recruits sang a long time. Ned sat down
with his back against the wall, and he did not share in the general joy.
He remembered the look that had come into Urrea's eyes, when they met
the accusing gaze of his own.
After a while the singing ceased, and one by one the recruits fell
asleep in the close, stifling air of the place. Ned dozed an hour or
two, but awoke before dawn. He was oppressed by a deep and unaccountable
gloom, and it was not lifted when, in the dusk, he looked at the rows of
sleeping figures, crowded so close together that no part of the floor
was visible.
He saw the first light appear in the east, and then spread like the slow
opening of a fan. The recruits began to awaken by and by, and their good
spirits had carried over from the night before. Soon the old church was
filled with talk and laughter.
The day came fully, and then the guards brought food and water, not
enough to satisfy hunger and thirst, but enough to keep them alive. They
did not complain, as they would soon be free men, able to obtain all
that they wanted. Presently the doors of the church were thrown open,
and the officers and many soldiers appeared. Young Urrea was foremost
among the officers, and, in a loud voice, he ordered all the prisoners
to come out, an order that they obeyed with alacrity and pleasure.
Ned marched forth with the rest, although he did not speak to any of
those about him. He looked first at Urrea, whose manner was polite and
smiling, as it had been the night before, and then his glance shifted to
the other officers, older men, and evidently higher in rank. He saw
that two, Colonels by their uniforms, were quite pale, and that one of
them was biting savagely at his mustache. It all seemed sinister to Ned.
Why was Urrea doing everything, and why were his superiors standing by,
evidently a prey to some great nervous strain?
The recruits, under Urrea's orders, were formed into three columns. One
was to take the road toward San Antonio, the second would march toward
San Patricio, and the third to Copano. The three columns shouted
good-by, but the recruits assured one another that they would soon meet
again. Urrea told one column that it was going to be sent home
immediately, another that it was going outside the town, where it was to
help in killing cattle for beef which they would eat, and the third that
it was leaving the church in a hurry to make room for Santa Anna's own
troops, who would reach the town in an hour.
Ned was in the largest column, near the head of it, and he watched
everything with a wary eye. He noticed that the Mexican colonels still
left all the arrangements to Urrea, and that they remained extremely
nervous. Their hands were never quiet for a moment.
The column filed down through the town, and Ned saw the Mexican women
looking at them. He heard two or three of them say "pobrecitos" (poor
fellows), and their use of the word struck upon his ear with an ominous
sound. He glanced back. Close behind the mass of prisoners rode a strong
squadron of cavalry with young Urrea at their head. Ned could not see
Urrea's face, which was hidden partly by a cocked and plumed hat, but he
noticed that the young Mexican sat very upright, as if he felt the pride
of authority. One hand held the reins, and the other rested on the
silver hilt of a small sword at his side.
A column of Mexican infantry marched on either side of the prisoners,
and only a few yards away. It seemed to Ned that they were holding the
Texans very close for men whom they were to release in a few hours.
Trusting the Mexicans in nothing, he was suspicious of everything, and
he watched with a gaze that missed no detail. But he seemed to be alone
in such thoughts. The recruits, enjoying the fresh air and the prospect
of speedy freedom, were talking much, and exchanging many jests.
They passed out of the little town, and the last Ned saw of it was the
Mexican women standing in the doorways and watching. They continued
along the road in double file, with the Mexican infantry still on either
side, and the Mexican cavalry in the rear. A half mile from the town,
and Urrea gave an order. The whole procession stopped, and the column of
Mexican infantry on the left passed around, joining their comrades on
the right. The recruits paid no attention to the movement, but Ned
looked instantly at Urrea. He saw the man rise now in his saddle, his
whole face aflame. In a flash he divined everything. His heart leaped
and he shouted:
"Boys, they are going to kill us!"
The startled recruits did not have time to think, because the next
instant Urrea, rising to his full height in his stirrups, cried:
"Fire!"
The double line of Mexicans, at a range of a few yards, fired in an
instant into the column of unarmed prisoners. There was a great blaze, a
spurt of smoke and a tremendous crash. It seemed to Ned that he could
fairly hear the thudding of bullets upon bodies, and the breaking of
bones beneath the sudden fierce impact of the leaden hail. An awful
strangled cry broke from the poor recruits, half of whom were already
down. The Mexicans, reloading swiftly, poured in another volley, and
the prisoners fell in heaps. Then Urrea and the cavalry, with swords and
lances, charged directly upon them, the hoofs of their horses treading
upon wounded and unwounded alike.
Ned could never remember clearly the next few moments in that red and
awful scene. It seemed to him afterward that he went mad for the time.
He was conscious of groans and cries, of the fierce shouting of the
Mexicans, wild with the taste of blood, of the incessant crackling of
the rifles and muskets, and of falling bodies. He saw gathering over
himself and his slaughtered comrades a great column of smoke, pierced by
innumerable jets of fire, and he caught glimpses of the swart faces of
the Mexicans as they pulled triggers. From right and left came the crash
of heavy but distant volleys, showing that the other two columns were
being massacred in the same way.
He felt the thunder of hoofs and a horse was almost upon him, while the
rider, leaning from the saddle, cut at him with a saber. Ned, driven by
instinct rather than reason, sprang to one side the next instant, and
then the horseman was lost in the smoke. He dashed against a figure, and
was about to strike with his fist, the only weapon that he now had, when
he saw that he had collided with a Texan, unwounded like himself. Then
he, too, was lost in the smoke.
A consuming rage and horror seized Ned. Why he was not killed he never
knew. The cloud over the place where the slaughtered recruits lay
thickened, but the Mexicans never ceased to fire into it with their
rifles and muskets. The crackling of the weapons beat incessantly upon
the drums of his ears. Mingled with it were the cries and groans of the
victims, now fast growing fewer. But it was all a blurred and red
vision to Ned. While he was in that deadly volcano he moved by instinct
and impulse and not by reason.
A few of the unwounded had already dashed from the smoke and had
undertaken flight across the plain, away from the Mexican infantry,
where they were slain by the lances or muskets of the cavalry under
Urrea. Ned followed them. A lancer thrust so savagely at him that when
the boy sprang aside the lance was hurled from his hand. Ned's foot
struck against the weapon, and instantly he picked it up. A horseman on
his right was aiming a musket at him, and, using the lance as a long
club, he struck furiously at the Mexican. The heavy butt landed squarely
upon the man's head, and shattered it like an eggshell. Youthful and
humane, Ned nevertheless felt a savage joy when the man's skull crashed
beneath his blow.
It is true that he was quite mad for the moment. His rage and horror
caused every nerve and muscle within him to swell. His brain was a mass
of fire. His strength was superhuman. Whirling the great lance in club
fashion about his head he struck another Mexican across the shoulders,
and sent him with a howl of pain from the saddle. He next struck a horse
across the forehead, and so great was the impact that the animal went
down. A cavalryman at a range of ten yards fired at him and missed. He
never fired again, as the heavy butt of the lance caught him the next
instant on the side of the head, and he went to join his comrade.
All the while Ned was running for the timber. A certain reason was
appearing in his actions, and he was beginning to think clearly. He
curved about as he ran, knowing that it would disturb the aim of the
Mexicans, who were not good shots, and instinctively he held on to the
lance, whirling it about his head, and from time to time uttering fierce
shouts like an Indian warrior wild with battle. More than one Mexican
horseman sheered away from the formidable figure with the formidable
weapon.
Ned saw other figures, unarmed, running for the wood. A few reached it,
but most were cut down before they had gone half way. Behind him the
firing and shouting of the Mexicans did not seem to decrease, but no
more groans or cries reached him from the bank of smoke that hung over
the place where the murdered recruits lay. But the crash of the fire,
directed on the other columns to right and left, still came to him.
Ned saw the wood not far away now. Twenty or thirty shots had been fired
at him, but all missed except two, which merely grazed him. He was not
hurt and the superhuman strength, born of events so extraordinary, still
bore him up. The trees looked very green. They seemed to hold out
sheltering arms, and there was dense underbrush through which the
cavalry could not dash.
He came yet nearer, and then a horseman, rifle raised to his shoulder,
dashed in between. Sparks danced before Ned's eyes. Throat and mouth,
lips and his whole face burned with smoke and fever, but all the heat
seemed to drive him into fiercer action. He struck at horse and horseman
so savagely that the two went down together, and the lance broke in his
hands. Then with a cry of triumph that his parched throat could scarcely
utter, he leaped into the timber.
Having reached the shelter of the trees, Ned ran on for a long time, and
finally came into the belt of forest along the San Antonio River.
Twenty-six others escaped in the same way on that day, which witnessed
the most dreadful deed ever done on the soil of North America, but
nearly four hundred were murdered in obedience to the letter sent by
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Fannin and Ward, themselves, were shot
through the head, and their bodies were thrown into the common heap of
the slain.
Ned did not see any of the other fugitives among the trees. He may have
passed them, but his brain was still on fire, and he beheld nothing but
that terrible scene behind him, the falling recruits, the fire and the
smoke and the charging horsemen. He could scarcely believe that it was
real. The supreme power would not permit such things. Already the Alamo
had lighted a fire in his soul, and Goliad now turned it into a roaring
flame. He hated Urrea, who had rejoiced in it, and he hated Santa Anna
who, he dimly felt, had been responsible for this massacre. Every
element in his being was turned for the time into passion and hatred. As
he wandered on, he murmured unintelligible but angry words through his
burning lips.
He knew nothing about the passage of time, but after many hours he
realized that it was night, and that he had come to the banks of a
river. It was the San Antonio, and he swam it, wishing to put the stream
between himself and the Mexicans. Then he sat down in the thick timber,
and the collapse from such intense emotions and such great exertions
came quickly. He seemed to go to pieces all in a breath. His head fell
forward and he became unconscious.