Ahead of the Army Part 21

"Colonel Ta.s.sara!" exclaimed Ned. "I knew you were wounded, but are you not getting well?"

"Senor Carfora!" quickly interrupted Senorita Felicia. "He was. .h.i.t in the leg by a bullet at Angostura. He had a bayonet wound, too, and they thought he would die, but they made him a general--"

"I am getting better, Carfora," said General Ta.s.sara, courageously, "but I can do no more fighting just now. I sincerely wish that there might not be any. The plans of Santa Anna--"

"Ta.s.sara!" exclaimed Zuroaga. "What we heard is true. He is utterly ruined. But the peace terms are rejected by all the government we have left, and our city defences must soon go down as did those at Cerro Gordo, Contreras, and Churubusco. We are to hear more about those affairs from Senor Carfora. He was an eye witness of them."

"Oh, my dear young friend," said Senora Ta.s.sara, "were you with the American army in all those battles?"

"No, not exactly," said Ned. "I was with General Morales at Vera Cruz.

Then I came on with General Scott all the way from the seacoast to this place. He has troops enough now, and he will fight his way in. I'm real sorry about it, too, for no more men need to be killed."

"I think the gringos are just terrible," said Felicia, as she came over and sat down by Ned. "I want to hear about them. I do hope they won't be defeated now, though, for if they are n.o.body can guess who will be Emperor of Mexico when they are driven away."

"She is not so far wrong," said Ta.s.sara, sadly. "The future of our country is all in the dark. Please let us hear your report."

Pablo, of course, had not followed his superiors into the parlor, and all who were there were free to discuss the situation. The morning sun was looking in at the windows when all of the talk was finished. Ned had learned that only the family and a few trusted servants remained in the house, but he would have eaten his breakfast with even a more complete sense of security from any emissaries of the military authorities if he had known how much they had upon their hands that day, the 4th of September, 1847. There had already been a sharp correspondence between the commanders of the two armies, and now General Scott himself declared the armistice at an end. All the angry patriotism of the Mexican people arose to meet the emergency, and every possible preparation was rapidly made for the last desperate struggle in defence of their capital. It was as if the idea prevailed that, if this American force now here could be defeated, the United States would give the matter up, instead of sending more troops to the a.s.sistance of their first insufficient battalions.

"Senor Carfora," said Senorita Felicia, "you must not go out of the house. I do not want you to be killed."

"That is so," added her father. "As the affair stands now, they would surely regard you as a spy. You would be shot without a trial. All is confusion. I fear that even General Zuroaga is safe from arrest only among his own men. The army is the government. This nation needs a change."

"General Ta.s.sara," said Ned, "isn't our army bringing one?"

"The war is promising a great deal," replied Ta.s.sara, gloomily. "It has already delivered us from King Paredes and Santa Anna and from half a dozen other military usurpers. Moreover, all the lands which the United States propose to take away will be rescued from any future anarchy and will be made some use of. They will be lost to Mexico forever within one week from to-day, for we cannot hold the city."

General Zuroaga had quietly disappeared. Very soon, the Ta.s.sara family went to their own room. Then not even the servants could tell what had become of Senora Paez. Ned Crawford did not at all know what to do with himself. He walked around the rooms below; then he went out to the stables and back again, but he was all alone, for Pablo and the Oaxaca men had gone to their regiment. He went up to the library and had a one-sided talk with the man in armor, but it did not do him any good, and he did not care a cent for all the books on the shelves. They could tell only of old wars, fought long ago, and here was a real war right on hand, that seemed to be wandering all around the house.

During all the long, hot days of the armistice, a kind of dull quiet had appeared to brood over the city and its forts and over the camps and entrenchments of the besiegers. It had been something like a thundercloud, which was all the while growing blacker and hanging lower, and before the end of the first day of renewed hostilities the anxious watchers in the city houses could hear something which sounded like distant thunder. It was the occasional roar of a gun from one or another of the batteries on either side, as a warning of the more terrible things which were about to come, and more than once Ned groaned to himself:

"Oh, how I wish I were out there, with Lieutenant Grant and the Seventh.

This is worse than being shut up in Vera Cruz. I didn't have any regiment of my own, then, but now I belong in General Scott's army."

Evening came at last, and all of the family was gathered behind the lattices of the parlor windows, to watch the detachments of soldiers march past, and to wonder where they were going. General Zuroaga was not there, but there had been a message from him that there would be a great battle in the morning, for the Americans were moving forward.

"We are in greater numbers than they are," muttered General Ta.s.sara.

"But we have no General Scott, and we have no officers like his. Almost all that we really have is courage and gunpowder, and these are not enough to defeat such an attack as he will make. The city is lost already!"

CHAPTER XIX.

THE STARS AND STRIPES IN TENOCHt.i.tLAN

"What a roar it is! And so very near! I hope General Scott will not bombard this city, as he did Vera Cruz. It would be awful to see bombsh.e.l.ls falling among these crowds of people!"

The American commander had not the slightest idea of doing anything of the kind, but there had been almost continuous fighting in the days following the termination of the armistice. Perhaps the hardest of it had been at Molino del Rey, and the defences there had been carried by the a.s.sailants. There appeared now to be but the one barrier of the Chapultepec hill between them and a final victory.

A hand was on Ned's shoulder, and a trembling voice said to him:

"Oh, Senor Carfora! Where have you been? I'm so frightened! Are those cannon coming right on into the city?"

"No," said Ned, "but I have been out all day. I went almost everywhere, and it seems as if the city were full of wounded men. The soldiers are crowding in. Oh, how I wish I knew how things are going!"

There was a sound of sobbing behind them, and in a moment more the arms of Senora Paez were around Felicia.

"My darling! My dear little girl!" she exclaimed. "Senor Carfora, too!

The end has come. The Americans have stormed Chapultepec, and the city is at their mercy. Alas, for me! General Bravo was taken prisoner, and my beloved old friend, Zuroaga, was killed at the head of his regiment.

We shall never see him again!"

Ned felt as if somebody had struck him a heavy blow. He could not say a word for a moment, and then he whispered:

"Poor General Zuroaga! Why, I had no idea that he would be killed!"

That is always so after a battle. Those who read the lists of the killed and wounded expect to find the names of other people's friends there, and not the names of those from whom they were hoping to hear an account of the victory.

"Felicia," said the senora, "your father and mother are in their room.

Do not go there just now. You must not go out again, Senor Carfora. You have been running too many risks. Talk with me for awhile."

Whether or not he had been in any danger, it had been impossible for Ned to remain in the house during an entire week of military thunder storm, and he had ventured out almost recklessly. There had, indeed, been so much confusion that little attention had generally been paid to him, and he had even gone out through the gates to use his telescope upon the distant clouds of smoke and the movements of marching men. He had seen, therefore, the steady, irresistible advances of the American troops, and he had almost understood that to General Scott the capture of the city was merely a matter of mathematical calculation, like an example in arithmetic.

He went into the parlor with Senora Paez and Felicia, and there they sat, almost in silence, until long after their usual bedtime, but the sound of guns had ceased, for the siege of Mexico was ended.

It was during that night that General Santa Anna, with nearly all that was left of his army, marched silently out of the city, and the last remnants of his political power pa.s.sed from him as the American troops began to march in, the next morning. Of all the negotiations between the remaining Mexican authorities and General Scott, Ned Crawford knew nothing, but there was disorder everywhere, and it would have been more perilous than ever for a fellow like him to have been caught in the streets by any of the reckless, angry men who swarmed among them. On the evening of the 14th of September, nevertheless, he was standing in the Paez piazza with Senorita Felicia, and he saw a column of soldiers coming up the street.

"Senorita!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Look! Our flag! Our men! Hurrah!

Those are the colors of the Seventh! It is my own regiment, and if there isn't Lieutenant Grant himself!"

"Do not go!" she said. "Do not leave me!" but she was too late, for he had darted away, and in a moment more he was greeted with:

"Hullo, Ned! I'm glad you didn't make out to get killed. I knew you couldn't get out, and I'd about given you up. Is that where you live?"

"It's the house I told you of," said Ned. "They are the best kind of people--"

"Go back there, then," commanded the lieutenant. "Your father is out among the hospitals just now, taking care of the wounded, but I want to know where to send him. I'll see you again. I must go on to my post."

Back he ran to the piazza, and even Felicia was compelled to admit that her friend Senor Carfora's own regiment was splendid, as its close ranks swung away in such perfect order.

"But," she said, "you might have been killed, if you had been with them, and I am glad you did not have to kill any of our people."

"So am I," said Ned, "now that it is all over. I guess this is the end of the war. But how I shall miss poor General Zuroaga!"

Rapidly and prudently, General Scott was occupying the city and restoring order. With such wisdom and moderation did he perform his duties as military governor that almost immediately the previously distressed inhabitants began to regard the arrival of the United States army as a positive blessing. At the same time, it was obvious to everybody that months might be required for the necessary peace negotiations. A new and firm Mexican government would have to be established, and much difficult legislation would be called for on the part of the Congress of the United States, since that body was to appropriate large sums of money in payment for the territory to be acquired from Mexico.

During three whole days, Ned went from camp to camp and from hospital to hospital, in search of his father, but Mr. Crawford had heard tidings of his son which satisfied him, and he stuck to his wounded soldiers. It was not, therefore, until the afternoon of the third day that Ned found a grand reception prepared for him in the parlor of the Paez mansion.

"Father!" he shouted, as he hurried in, after Felicia, at the door, had warned him of what was before him. "Hurrah! Here I am!"