Remember the Alamo Part 20

"My dear Maria, every church thinks itself right; and all other churches wrong. G.o.d looks at the heart. If it is right, it makes all wors.h.i.+p true. But when the Americans have won Texas, they will give to every one freedom to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d as they wish."

"Saints in heaven, Roberto! That day comes not. One victory! Bah! That is an accident. The Mexicans are a very brave people,--the bravest in the world. Did they not drive the Spaniards out of their country; and it is not to be contradicted that the Spaniards have conquered all other nations. That I saw in a book. The insult the Americans have given to Mexico will be revenged. Her honor has been compromised before the world. Very well, it will be made bright again; yes, Fray Ignatius says with blood and fire it will be made bright."

"And in the mean time, Maria, we have taken from them the city they love best of all. An hour ago I saw, General Cos, with eleven hundred Mexican soldiers, pa.s.s before a little band of less than two hundred Americans and lay down their arms. These defenders of the Alamo had all been blessed by the priests. Their banners had been anointed with holy oil and holy water. They had all received absolution everyday before the fight began; they had been promised a free pa.s.sage through purgatory and a triumphant entry into heaven."

"Well, I will tell you something; Fray Ignatius showed it to me--it was a paper printed. The rebels and their wives and children are to be sent from this earth--you may know where they will all go, Roberto--Congress says so. The States will give their treasures. The archbishops will give the episcopal treasures. The convents will give their gems and gold ornaments. Ten thousand men had left for San Antonio, and ten thousand more are to follow; the whole under our great President Santa Anna. Oh, yes! The rebels in Was.h.i.+ngton are to be punished also. It is well known that they sent soldiers to Nacogdoches. Mexicans are not blind moles, and they have their intelligence, you know. All the States who have helped these outrageous ingrates are to be devastated, and you will see that your famous Was.h.i.+ngton will be turned into a heap of stories. I have seen these words in print, Roberto. I a.s.sure you, that it is not just a little breath--what one or another says--it is the printed orders of the Mexican government. That is something these Americans will have to pay attention to."

The doctor sighed, and answered the sorrowful, credulous woman with a kiss. What was the use of reasoning with simplicity so ignorant and so confident? He turned the conversation to a subject that always roused her best and kindest feelings--her son Jack.

"I have just seen young Dewees, Maria. He and Jack left San Felipe together. Dewees brought instructions to General Burleson; and Jack carried others to Fannin, at Goliad."

She took her husband's hands and kissed them. "That indeed! Oh, Roberto!

If I could only see my Jack once more! I have had a constant accusation to bear about him. Till I kiss my boy again, the world will be all dark before my face. If Our Lady will grant me this miraculous favor, I will always afterwards be exceedingly religious. I will give all my desires to the other world."

"Dearest Maria, G.o.d did not put us in this world to be always desiring another. There is no need, mi queridita, to give up this life as a bad affair. We shall be very happy again, soon.

"As you say. If I could only see Jack! For that, I would promise G.o.d Almighty and you Roberto to be happy. I would forgive the rebels and the heretics--for they are well acquainted with h.e.l.l road, and will guide each other there without my wish."

"I am sure if Jack has one day he will come to you. And when he hears of the surrender of General Cos--"

"Well now, it was G.o.d's will that General Cos should surrender. What more can be said? It is sufficient."

"Let me call Antonia. She is miserable at your displeasure; and it is not Antonia's fault."

"Pardon me, Roberto. I have seen Antonia. She is not agreeable and obedient to Fray Ignatius."

"She has been very wickedly used by him; and I fear he intends to do her evil."

"It is not convenient to discuss the subject now. I will see Isabel; she is a good child--my only comfort. Paciencia! there is Luis Alveda singing; Isabel will now be deaf to all else"; and she rose with a sigh and walked towards the cas.e.m.e.nt looking into the garden.

Luis was coming up the oleander walk. The pretty trees were thinner now, and had only a pink blossom here and there. But the bright winter sun shone through them, and fell upon Luis and Isabel. For she had also seen him coming, and had gone to meet him, with a little rainbow-tinted shawl over her head. She looked so piquant and so happy. She seemed such a proper mate for the handsome youth at her side that a word of dissent was not possible. The doctor said only, "She is so like you, Maria. I remember when you were still more lovely, and when from your balcony you made me with a smile the happiest man in the world."

Such words were never lost ones; for the Senora had a true and great love for her husband. She gave him again a smile, she put her hand in his, and then there were no further conciliations required. They stood in the suns.h.i.+ne of their own hearts, and listened a moment to the gay youth, singing, how at--

The strong old Alamo Two hundred men, with rifles true, Shot down a thousand of the foe, And broke the triple ramparts through; And dropped the flag as black as night, For Freedom's green and red and white.[3]

CHAPTER XI. A HAPPY TRUCE.

"Well, honor is the subject of my story; I cannot tell what you and other men Think of this life; but for my single self, I had as lief not be, as live to be In awe of such a thing as I myself."

"Two truths are told As happy prologues to the swelling act, Of the imperial theme."

"This is the eve of Christmas, No sleep from night to morn; The Virgin is in travail, At twelve will the Child be born."

Cities have not only a certain physiognomy; they have also a decided mental and moral character, and a definite political tendency. There are good and bad cities, artistic and commercial cities, scholarly and manufacturing cities, aristocratic and radical cities. San Antonio, in its political and social character, was a thoroughly radical city.

Its population, composed in a large measure of adventurous units from various nationalities, had that fluid rather than fixed character, which is susceptible to new ideas. For they were generally men who had found the restraints of the centuries behind them to be intolerable--men to whom freedom was the grand ideal of life.

It maybe easily undertood{sic} that this element in the population of San Antonio was a powerful one, and that a little of such leaven would stir into activity a people who, beneath the crust of their formal piety, had still something left of that pride and adventurous spirit which distinguished the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabel.

In fact, no city on the American continent has such a b.l.o.o.d.y record as San Antonio. From its settlement by the warlike monks of 1692, to its final capture by the Americans in 1836, it was well named "the city of the sword." The Comanche and the white man fought around its walls their forty years' battle for supremacy. From 1810 to 1821 its streets were constantly b.l.o.o.d.y with the fight between the royalists and republicans, and the city and the citadel pa.s.sed from, one party to the other continually. And when it came to the question of freedom and American domination, San Antonio was, as it had ever been, the great Texan battle-field.

Its citizens then were well used to the fortunes and changes of war. Men were living who had seen the horrors of the auto da fe and the splendors of viceregal authority. Insurgent n.o.bles, fighting priests, revolutionizing Americans, all sorts and conditions of men, all chances and changes of religious and military power, had ruled it with a temporary absolutism during their generation.

In the main there was a favorable feeling regarding its occupation by the Americans. The most lawless of them were law-abiding in comparison with any kind of victorious Mexicans. Americans protected private property, they honored women, they observed the sanct.i.ty of every man's home; "and, as for being heretics, that was an affair for the saints and the priests; the comfortable benefits of the Holy Catholic Church, had not been vouchsafed to all nations."

Political changes are favorable to religious tolerance, and the priests themselves had been sensible of a great decrease in their influence during the pending struggle. Prominent Mexicans had given aid and comfort to the Americans in spite of their spiritual orders, and there were many men who, like Lopez Navarro, did not dare to go to confession, because they would have been compelled to acknowledge themselves rebels.

When the doctor and Dare and Luis reached the Plaza, the morning after the surrender, they found the city already astir. Thousands of women were in the churches saying ma.s.ses for the dead; the men stood at their store doors or sat smoking on their balconies, chatting with the pa.s.sers-by or watching the movements of the victorious army and the evacuation of the conquered one.

Nearly all of the brave two hundred occupied the Plaza. They were still greatly excited by the miraculous ecstacy of victory. But when soldiers in the death-pang rejoice under its influence, what wonder that the living feel its intoxicating rapture? They talked and walked as if they already walked the streets of Mexico. All things seemed possible to them. The royalty of their carriage, the authority in their faces, gave dignity even to their deerskin clothing. Its primitive character was its distinction, and the wearers looked like the demi-G.o.ds of the heroic stage of history.

Lopez Navarro touched the doctor and directed his attention to them.

"Does the world, Senor, contain the stuff to make their counterparts?"

"They are Americans, Navarro. And though there are a variety of Americans, they have only one opinion about submitting to tyrants--THEY WON'T DO IT!"

This was the conversation interrupted by Ortiz and the message he brought, and the doctor was thoroughly sobered by the events following.

He was not inclined to believe, as the majority of the troops did, that Mexico was conquered. He expected that the Senora's prediction would be verified. And the personal enmity which the priesthood felt to him induced a depressing sense of personal disaster.

Nothing in the house or the city seemed inclined to settle. It took a few days to draw up the articles of capitulation and clear the town of General Cos and the Mexican troops. And he had no faith in their agreement to "retire from Texas, and never again carry arms against the Americans." He knew that they did not consider it any sin to make "a mental reservation" against a heretic. He was quite sure that if Cos met reinforcements, he would have to be fought over again immediately.

And amid these public cares and considerations, he had serious private ones. The Senora was still under the control of Fray Ignatius. It required all the influence of his own personal presence and affection to break the spiritual captivity in which he held her. He knew that the priest had long been his enemy.

He saw that Antonia was hated by him. He was in the shadow of a terror worse than death--that of a long, hopeless captivity. A dungeon and a convent might become to them a living grave, in which cruelty and despair would slowly gnaw life away.

And yet, for a day or two he resolved not to speak of his terror. The Senora was so happy in his presence, and she had such kind confidences to give him about her plans for her children's future, that he could not bear to alarm her. And the children also were so full of youth's enthusiasms and love's sweet dreams. Till the last moment why should he awaken them? And as the strongest mental element in a home gives the tone to it, so Dare and Antonia, with the doctor behind them, gave to the Mexican household almost an American freedom of intercourse and community of pleasure.

The Senora came to the parlor far more frequently, and in her own apartments her children visited her with but slight ceremony. They discussed all together their future plans. They talked over a wonderful journey which they were to take in company to New Orleans, and Was.h.i.+ngton, and New York, and perhaps even to London and Paris--"who could tell, if the Senora would be so good as to enjoy herself?" They ate more together. They got into the habit of congregating about the same hearthstone. It was the Senora's first real experience of domestic life.

In about six days the Mexican forces left the city. The terms of surrender granted General Cos struck the Mexicans with a kind of wonder.

They had fought with the express declaration that they would take no American prisoner. Yet the Americans not only permitted Cos and his troops to leave under parole of honor, but gave them their arms and sufficient ammunition to protect themselves from the Indians on their journey home. They allowed them also all their private property. They furnished them with the provisions necessary to reach the Rio Grande.

They took charge of their sick and wounded. They set all the Mexican prisoners at liberty--in short, so great was their generosity and courtesy that the Mexicans were unable to comprehend their motives.

Even Lopez was troubled at it. "I a.s.sure you," he said to Dr. Worth, "they will despise such civility; they will not believe in its sincerity. At this very blessed hour of G.o.d, they are accusing the Americans of being afraid to press their advantage. Simply, you will have the fight to make over again. I say this, because I know Santa Anna."

"Santa Anna is but a man, Lopez."

"Me perdonas! He is however a man who knows a trick more than the devil.

One must be careful of a bull in front, of a mule behind, and of a monk and Santa Anna on all sides. At the word monk, Lopez glanced significantly at a pa.s.sing priest, and Doctor Worth saw that it was Fray Ignatius.

"He sprinkled the Mexican troops with holy water, and blessed them as they left the city this morning. He has the ear of General Cos. He is not a man to offend, I a.s.sure you, Doctor."

The doctor walked thoughtfully away. San Antonio was full of his friends, yet never had he felt himself and his family to be in so much danger. And the words of Lopez had struck a responding chord in his own consciousness. The careless bravery, the splendid generosity of his countrymen was at least premature. He went through the city with observing eyes, and saw much to trouble him.

The gates of Alamo were open. Crockett lounged upon his rifle in the Plaza. A little crowd was around him, and the big Tennesseean hunter was talking to them. Shouts of laughter, bravas of enthusiasm, answered the homely wit and stirring periods that had over and over "made room for Colonel Crockett," both in the Tennessee Legislature and the United States Congress. His rifle seemed a part of him--a kind of third arm.

His confident manner, his manliness and bravery, turned his wit into wisdom. The young fellows around found in him their typical leader.