Remember the Alamo Part 25

"Houston is biding his time. He is doing at present the hardest duty a great man can do: setting an example of obedience to a divided and incompetent government. Lopez, you said rightly that we had too many leaders. When those appointed for sacrifice have been offered up--when we are in the extremity of danger and ruin, then Houston will hear the word he is waiting for."

"And he will lead you on to victory. Indeed, I know it. I have seen him.

He has the line--the fortunate line on the forehead. He is the loadstone in the breast of your cause; the magnet who can draw good fortune to it.

If fate be against you, he will force fate to change her mind. If fate weave you a common thread, he will change it into purple. Victory, which she gives to others reluctantly, he will take like a master from her hand HOUSTON! What essence! What existence! What honor! What hope there is in those seven letters. Consider this: He will find a way or make a way for freedom."

Subsequent events proved the opinion of Thomas Worth correct with regard to the garrison in the Alamo. David Crockett! James Bowie! Barret Travis! The names were a host in themselves; one and all refused to couple them with retreat.

"Military defeats may be moral victories, young man," said Crockett to Thomas Worth; "and moral victories make national greatness. The Roman that filled the gulf with his own body--the men who died at Thermopylae--they live to-day, and they have been talking with us."

"But if you join Houston you will save many lives."

"That isn't always the point, sir. Jim Bowie was saying there was once a lover who used to swim two miles every night to see a young woman called Hero. Now, he might have waited for a boat and gone dry-shod to his sweetheart; but if he had, who would have cared whether he lived or died? The Alamo is our Hero. If we can't keep her, we can die for her."

The same spirit moved every soul at Goliad. Fanning was there with nearly nine hundred men, and he had named the place Fort Defiance, and a.s.serted his determination to hold it. In the mean time, Houston was using his great personal influence to collect troops, to make treaties with the Indians, and to keep together some semblance of a provisional government.

But it had become evident to all the leading spirits of the revolution that no half-way measures would now do. They only produced half-way enthusiasm. For this end, Houston spoke out with his accustomed boldness:

"Gentlemen, we must declare the independence of Texas, and like our fore-elders, sink or swim by that declaration. Nothing else, nothing less, can save us. The planters of Texas must feel that they are fighting for their own const.i.tution, and not for Mexican promises made to them twelve years ago and never yet kept."

The simple proposition roused a new enthusiasm; for while Urrea was hastening towards Goliad, and Santa Anna towards San Antonio, and Filisola to Was.h.i.+ngton, the divided people were becoming more and more embittered. The American soldiers, who had hitherto gone in and out among the citizens of San Antonio during the day, and only slept in the Alamo, were conscious of an ominous change in the temper of the city.

They gathered their recruits together and shut themselves in the fortress.

Again Thomas Worth urged them to fall back either upon the line of Houston at Gonzales, or Fanning at Goliad; but in the indecision and uncertainty of all official orders, Crockett thought it best to make the first stand at the Mexican city.

"We can, at least," he said, "keep Santa Anna busy long enough to give the women and children of our own settlements time to escape, and the men time to draw together with a certain purpose."

"The cry of Santa Anna has been like the cry of wolf! wolf!" said Bowie.

"I hear that great numbers that were under arms have gone home to plant their corn and cotton. Do you want Santa Anna to murder them piecemeal--house by house, family by family? Great George! Which of us would accommodate him with a prolonged pleasure like that? No! he shall have a square fight for every life lie gets"; and the calm, gentlemanly Bowie was suddenly transformed into a flas.h.i.+ng, vehement, furious avenger. He laid his knife and pistols on the table, his steel-blue eyes scintillated as if they were lightning; his handsome mouth, his long, white hands, his whole person radiated wrath and expressed the utmost lengths of invincible courage and insatiable hatred.

"Gentlemen," answered Travis, "I go with Crockett and Bowie. If we hold the Alamo, it is a deed well done. If we fall with it, it is still a deed well done. We shall have given to Houston and Fanning time to interpose themselves between Santa Anna and the settlements."

"We have none of us lived very well," said Bowie, "but we can die well.

I say as an American, that Texas is ours by right of natural locality, and by right of treaty; and, as I live, I will do my best to make it American by right of conquest! Comrades, I do not want a prettier quarrel to die in"--and looking with a brave, unflinching gaze around the grim fortress--"I do not want a better monument than the Alamo!"

The speech was not answered with any noisy hurrahing; but the men around the bare, long table clasped hands across it, and from that last interview with the doomed men Thomas Worth came away with the knowledge that he had seen the battle begun. He felt now that there was no time to delay longer his plans for the safety of his mother and sisters. These were, indeed, of the simplest and most uncertain character; for the condition of the country and its few resources were such as to make flight the only way that promised safety. And yet flight was environed with dangers of every kind--hunger, thirst, exhaustion, savage beasts, Indians, and the triple armies of Mexico.

The day after his arrival he had begun to prepare, as far as possible, for this last emergency, but the Senora's unconquerable aversion to leave her native city had constantly hampered him. Until Santa Anna really appeared she would not believe in the necessity of such a movement. The proposal of Fray Ignatius, even if it did end in a convent, did not seem so terrible as to be a wanderer without a roof to cover her. She felt aggrieved and injured by Antonia's and Isabel's positive refusal to accept sanctuary from the priest, and with the underhand cunning of a weak woman she had contrived to let Fray Ignatius know that SHE was not to blame for the refusal.

All the same the priest hated her in conjunction with her children. On the morning after her interview with her uncle, he went to receive her submission; for the marquis had informed him of all that had pa.s.sed, and he felt the three women and the valuable Worth property already under his hard hand. He opened the gate with the air of a proprietor. He looked down the lovely alleys of the garden, and up at the latticed stories of the handsome house, with that solid satisfaction which is the reward of what is acquired by personal effort or wisdom.

When he entered the door and was confronted by Thomas Worth, he was for the moment nonplussed. But he did not permit his confusion and disappointment to appear. He had not seen Thomas for a long time. He addressed him with suavity and regrets, and yet, "was sure he would be glad to hear that, in the present dangerous crisis, the Marquis de Gonzaga had remembered the blood-tie and offered his protection to a family so desolate."

Thomas Worth leaned upon the bal.u.s.ters, as if guarding the approach to the Senora's apartments. He answered: "The protection of the marquis is unnecessary. Three ladies are too great a charge for one so aged. We will not impose it." The face of the young man was calm and stern, but he spoke without visible temper, until the priest prepared to pa.s.s him.

Then he stretched out his arm as a barrier.

"Fray Ignatius, you have already pa.s.sed beyond the threshold; permit me to remind you of Dr. Worth's words on that subject."

"I put my duty before any man's words."

"Sir, for my mother's sake, I would not be disrespectful; but I a.s.sure you, also, that I will not permit any man, while I live, to disregard my father's orders regarding his own household."

"I must see the Senora."

"That, I reply, is impossible."

"Presume not--dare not to interfere with a priest in the duty of his office. It is a mortal sin. The curse of the Church will rest upon you.

"The curse of the Church will not trouble me. But to treat my father's known wishes with contempt--that is an act of dishonor and disobedience which I will not be guilty of."

"Santa Maria! Suffer not my spirit to be moved by this wicked one. Out of my path, Satanas!"

The last word was not one which Thomas Worth had expected. He flushed crimson at its application, and with a few muttered sentences, intelligible only to the priest, he took him firmly by the shoulder, led him outside the door, and closed and barred it.

The expulsion was not accomplished without noisy opposition on the part of Fray Ignatius, and it pained Thomas deeply to hear, in the midst of the priest's anathemas, the shrill cries of his mother's distress and disapproval.

The next domestic movement of Thomas Worth was to rid the house of Molly and Manuel, and the inferior servants. It was not as easy a task as may be supposed. They had been ordered by Fray Ignatius to remain, and the order had not been countermanded. Even if the Senora and her daughters were going east, and their services were not needed, they had no objections to remain in the Worth house. They understood that the Church would take possession, and the housekeeping of the Church was notoriously easy and luxurious.

However, after exorbitant compensation had been made, and Molly had given in return "a bit of her mind," she left for the Irish colony of San Patricio, and Manuel immediately sought his favorite monte table.

When he had doubled his money, he intended to obey Molly's emphatic orders, and go and tell the priest all about it.

"I would rather, face a battery of cannon than Fray Ignatius and the servants again, Antonia." Antonia looked at her brother; he was worried and weary, and his first action, when he had finally cleared the house, was to walk around it, and bolt every door and window. Antonia followed him silently. She perceived that the crisis had come, and she was doing as good women in extremity do--trying to find in the darkness the hand always stretched out to guide and strengthen. As yet she had not been able to grasp it. She followed her brother like one in a troubled dream, whispering faintly, with white lips, "O G.o.d, where art Thou? Help and pity us!"

Thomas led her finally to his father's office. He went to a closet filled with drugs, removed them, and then a certain pressure of his hand caused the back of the closet to disappear in a groove, and a receptacle full of coin and papers was disclosed.

"We must take with us all the coin we can carry. What you are not likely to require, is to go to the men in the field. Then, hide in its place the old silver, and the laces, and the jewels, which came with the Flores from Castile; and any other papers and valuables, which you received from our father. I think even Fray Ignatius will not discover them here."

"Is there any special need to hurry to-day?

"Santa Anna is within forty-eight hours of San Antonio. He may force a march, and be here earlier. Travis told me last night that their advance scouts had come in with this intelligence. To-day they will gather every man they can, and prepare to defend themselves in the Alamo. As soon as Santa Anna arrives, we are in danger. I must leave here to-night. I must either take you with me or remove you to a place of more safety."

"Let us go with you."

"If my mother is willing."

"If she is not, what then?"

"Lopez has prepared for that emergency. He has an empty house three miles west of San Antonio. He has had it completely victualled. I will take you there after dark in the large green chariot. Ortiz will drive the light Jersey wagon on the Gonzales road. When inquiry is made, the Jersey wagon will have attracted the attention of every Mexican, and Fray Ignatius will receive positive a.s.surances that you were in it and are beyond his power. And certainly, without definite intelligence, he would never suspect you of being anywhere on the highway to Mexico."

"Shall we be quite alone?"

"For two or three days you will be quite alone. Ortiz will, however, return with the wagon by a circuitous route; for, sooner or later, you are sure to need it. Fear not to trust him. Only in one respect will you need to supplement his advice by your own intelligence: he is so eager to fight Santa Anna, he may persuade himself and you that it is necessary to fly eastward when it is not. In all other points you may be guided by him, and his disguise as a peon is so perfect that it will be easy for him to gather in the pulquerias all the information requisite for your direction. I have been out to the house, and I can a.s.sure you that Lopez has considered everything for your comfort."

"However, I would rather go with you, Thomas."

"It must be as mother desires."

When the circ.u.mstances were explained to the Senora, she was at first very determined to accept neither alternative. "She would remain where she was. She was a Flores and a Gonzaga. Santa Anna knew better than to molest her. She would rather trust to him than to those dreadful Americans." Reminded of Fray Ignatius, she shed a few tears over the poor padrecito, and a.s.sured her children they had made a mistake regarding him, which neither oil nor ointment, nor wit nor wisdom, could get over.