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Remember the Alamo

by Amelia E. Barr · English · Gutenberg #287 · 471,400 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Remember the Alamo

Author: Amelia E. Barr


        
Release date: June 29, 2008 [eBook #287]
                Most recently updated: October 31, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/287

Credits: Produced by Mike Lynch and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REMEMBER THE ALAMO ***




Produced by Mike Lynch





REMEMBER THE ALAMO

By Amelia E. Barr




CHAPTER I. THE CITY IN THE WILDERNESS.


        “What, are you stepping westward?”  “Yea.”
             *     *     *     *     *
         Yet who would stop or fear to advance,
         Though home or shelter there was none,
         With such a sky to lead him on!”
                                 --WORDSWORTH.

        “Ah! cool night wind, tremulous stars,
            Ah! glimmering water,
            Fitful earth murmur,
            Dreaming woods!”
                                 --ARNOLD.


In A. D. sixteen hundred and ninety-two, a few Franciscan monks began to
build a city. The site chosen was a lovely wilderness hundreds of miles
away from civilization on every side, and surrounded by savage and
warlike tribes. But the spot was as beautiful as the garden of God. It
was shielded by picturesque mountains, watered by two rivers, carpeted
with flowers innumerable, shaded by noble trees joyful with the notes of
a multitude of singing birds. To breathe the balmy atmosphere was to
be conscious of some rarer and finer life, and the beauty of the sunny
skies--marvellous at dawn and eve with tints of saffron and amethyst and
opal--was like a dream of heaven.

One of the rivers was fed by a hundred springs situated in the midst of
charming bowers. The monks called it the San Antonio; and on its
banks they built three noble Missions. The shining white stone of the
neighborhood rose in graceful domes and spires above the green trees.
Sculptures, basso-relievos, and lines of gorgeous coloring adorned the
exteriors. Within, were splendid altars and the appealing charms of
incense, fine vestures and fine music; while from the belfreys, bells
sweet and resonant called to the savages, who paused spell-bound and
half-afraid to listen.

Certainly these priests had to fight as well as to pray. The Indians did
not suffer them to take possession of their Eden without passionate and
practical protest. But what the monks had taken, they kept; and the
fort and the soldier followed the priest and the Cross. Ere long, the
beautiful Mission became a beautiful city, about which a sort of fame
full of romance and mystery gathered. Throughout the south and west, up
the great highway of the Mississippi, on the busy streets of New York,
and among the silent hills of New England, men spoke of San Antonio,
as in the seventeenth century they spoke of Peru; as in the eighteenth
century they spoke of Delhi, and Agra, and the Great Mogul.

Sanguine French traders carried thither rich ventures in fancy wares
from New Orleans; and Spanish dons from the wealthy cities of Central
Mexico, and from the splendid homes of Chihuahua, came there to buy. And
from the villages of Connecticut, and the woods of Tennessee, and
the lagoons of Mississippi, adventurous Americans entered the Texan
territory at Nacogdoches. They went through the land, buying horses
and lending their ready rifles and stout hearts to every effort of
that constantly increasing body of Texans, who, even in their swaddling
bands, had begun to cry Freedom!

At length this cry became a clamor that shook even the old viceroyal
palace in Mexico; while in San Antonio it gave a certain pitch to all
conversation, and made men wear their cloaks, and set their beavers,
and display their arms, with that demonstrative air of independence they
called los Americano. For, though the Americans were numerically few,
they were like the pinch of salt in a pottage--they gave the snap and
savor to the whole community.

Over this Franciscan-Moorish city the sun set with an incomparable
glory one evening in May, eighteen thirty-five. The white, flat-roofed,
terraced houses--each one in its flowery court--and the domes and spires
of the Missions, with their gilded crosses, had a mirage-like beauty
in the rare, soft atmosphere, as if a dream of Old Spain had been
materialized in a wilderness of the New World.

But human life in all its essentials was in San Antonio, as it was and
has been in all other cities since the world began. Women were in their
homes, dressing and cooking, nursing their children and dreaming of
their lovers. Men were in the market-places, buying and selling, talking
of politics and anticipating war. And yet in spite of these fixed
attributes, San Antonio was a city penetrated with romantic elements,
and constantly picturesque.

On this evening, as the hour of the Angelus approached, the narrow
streets and the great squares were crowded with a humanity that
assaulted and captured the senses at once; so vivid and so various were
its component parts. A tall sinewy American with a rifle across his
shoulder was paying some money to a Mexican in blue velvet and red
silk, whose breast was covered with little silver images of his favorite
saints. A party of Mexican officers were strolling to the Alamo; some in
white linen and scarlet sashes, others glittering with color and golden
ornaments. Side by side with these were monks of various orders: the
Franciscan in his blue gown and large white hat; the Capuchin in his
brown serge; the Brother of Mercy in his white flowing robes. Add to
these diversities, Indian peons in ancient sandals, women dressed as in
the days of Cortez and Pizarro, Mexican vendors of every kind, Jewish
traders, negro servants, rancheros curvetting on their horses, Apache
and Comanche braves on spying expeditions: and, in this various crowd,
yet by no means of it, small groups of Americans; watchful, silent,
armed to the teeth: and the mind may catch a glimpse of what the
streets of San Antonio were in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and
thirty-five.

It was just before sunset that the city was always at its gayest
point. Yet, at the first toll of the Angelus, a silence like that of
enchantment fell upon it. As a mother cries hush to a noisy child, so
the angel of the city seemed in this evening bell to bespeak a minute
for holy thought. It was only a minute, for with the last note there
was even an access of tumult. The doors and windows of the better houses
were thrown open, ladies began to appear on the balconies, there was
a sound of laughter and merry greetings, and the tiny cloud of the
cigarette in every direction.

But amid this sunset glamour of splendid color, of velvet, and silk,
and gold embroidery, the man who would have certainly first attracted a
stranger’s eye wore the plain and ugly costume common at that day to all
American gentlemen. Only black cloth and white linen and a row palmetto
hat with a black ribbon around it; but he wore his simple garments
with the air of a man having authority, and he returned the continual
salutations of rich and poor, like one who had been long familiar with
public appreciation.

It was Dr. Robert Worth, a physician whose fame had penetrated to
the utmost boundaries of the territories of New Spain. He had been
twenty-seven years in San Antonio. He was a familiar friend in every
home. In sickness and in death he had come close to the hearts in them.
Protected at first by the powerful Urrea family, he had found it easy to
retain his nationality, and yet live down envy and suspicion. The rich
had shown him their gratitude with gold; the poor he had never sent
unrelieved away, and they had given him their love.

When in the second year of his residence he married Dona Maria Flores,
he gave, even to doubtful officials, security for his political
intentions. And his future conduct had seemed to warrant their fullest
confidence. In those never ceasing American invasions between eighteen
hundred and three and eighteen hundred and thirty-two, he had been the
friend and succourer of his countrymen, but never their confederate;
their adviser, but never their confidant.

He was a tall, muscular man of a distinguished appearance. His hair was
white. His face was handsome and good to see. He was laconic in speech,
but his eyes were closely observant of all within their range, and they
asked searching questions. He had a reverent soul, wisely tolerant as
to creeds, and he loved his country with a passion which absence from
it constantly intensified. He was believed to be a thoroughly practical
man, fond of accumulating land and gold; but his daughter Antonia knew
that he had in reality a noble imagination. When he spoke to her of the
woods, she felt the echoes of the forest ring through the room; when of
the sea, its walls melted away in an horizon of long rolling waves.

He was thinking of Antonia as he walked slowly to his home in the
suburbs of the city. Of all his children she was the nearest to him. She
had his mother’s beauty. She had also his mother’s upright rectitude
of nature. The Iberian strain had passed her absolutely by. She was a
northern rose in a tropical garden. As he drew near to his own gates,
he involuntarily quickened his steps. He knew that Antonia would be
waiting. He could see among the thick flowering shrubs her tall slim
figure clothed in white. As she came swiftly down the dim aisles to meet
him, he felt a sentiment of worship for her. She concentrated in
herself his memory of home, mother, and country. She embodied, in the
perfectness of their mental companionship, that rarest and sweetest
of ties--a beloved child, who is also a wise friend and a sympathetic
comrade. As he entered the garden she slipped her hand into his. He
clasped it tightly. His smile answered her smile. There was no need for
any words of salutation.

The full moon had risen. The white house stood clearly out in its
radiance. The lattices were wide open and the parlor lighted. They
walked slowly towards it, between hedges of white camelias and scarlet
japonicas. Vanilla, patchuli, verbena, wild wandering honeysuckle--a
hundred other scents--perfumed the light, warm air. As they came near
the house there was a sound of music, soft and tinkling, with a rhythmic
accent as pulsating as a beating heart.

“It is Don Luis, father.”

“Ah! He plays well--and he looks well.”

They had advanced to where Don Luis was distinctly visible. He was
within the room, but leaning against the open door, playing upon a
mandolin. Robert Worth smiled as he offered his hand to him. It was
impossible not to smile at a youth so handsome, and so charming--a
youth who had all the romance of the past in his name, his home,
his picturesque costume; and all the enchantments of hope and great
enthusiasms in his future.

“Luis, I am glad to see you; and I felt your music as soon as I heard
it.”

He was glancing inquiringly around the room as he spoke; and Antonia
answered the look:

“Mother and Isabel are supping with Dona Valdez. There is to be a dance.
I am waiting for you, father. You must put on your velvet vest.”

“And you, Luis?”

“I do not go. I asked the judge for the appointment. He refused me. Very
well! I care not to drink chocolate and dance in his house. One hand
washes the other, and one cousin should help another.”

“Why did he refuse you?”

“Who can tell?” but Luis shrugged his shoulders expressively, and added,
“He gave the office to Blas-Sangre.”

“Ah!”

“Yes, it is so--naturally;--Blas-Sangre is rich, and when the devil
of money condescends to appear, every little devil rises up to do him
homage.”

“Let it pass, Luis. Suppose you sing me that last verse again. It had a
taking charm. The music was like a boat rocking on the water.”

“So it ought to be. I learned the words in New Orleans. The music came
from the heart of my mandolin. Listen, Senor!

        “‘Row young oarsman, row, young oarsman,
            Into the crypt of the night we float:
          Fair, faint moonbeams wash and wander,
            Wash and wander about the boat.
          Not a fetter is here to bind us,
            Love and memory lose their spell;
          Friends that we have left behind us,
            Prisoners of content,--farewell!’”

“You are a wizard, Luis, and I have had a sail with you. Now, come with
us, and show those dandy soldiers from the Alamo how to dance.”

“Pardon! I have not yet ceased to cross myself at the affront of this
morning. And the Senora Valdez is in the same mind as her husband. I
should be received by her like a dog at mass. I am going to-morrow to
the American colony on the Colorado.”

“Be careful, Luis. These Austin colonists are giving great
trouble--there have been whispers of very strong measures. I speak as a
friend.”

“My heart to yours! But let me tell you this about the Americans--their
drum is in the hands of one who knows how to beat it.”

“As a matter of hearsay, are you aware that three detachments of troops
are on their way from Mexico?”

“For Texas?”

“For Texas.”

“What are three detachments? Can a few thousand men put Texas under lock
and key? I assure you not, Senor; but now I must say adieu!”

He took the doctor’s hand, and, as he held it, turned his luminous face
and splendid eyes upon Antonia. A sympathetic smile brightened her own
face like a flame. Then he went silently away, and Antonia watched him
disappear among the shrubbery.

“Come, Antonia! I am ready. We must not keep the Senora waiting too
long.”

“I am ready also, father.” Her voice was almost sad, and yet it had a
tone of annoyance in it--“Don Luis is so imprudent,” she said. “He is
always in trouble. He is full of enthusiasms; he is as impossible as his
favorite, Don Quixote.”

“And I thank God, Antonia, that I can yet feel with him. Woe to the
centuries without Quixotes! Nothing will remain to them but--Sancho
Panzas.”




CHAPTER II. ANTONIA AND ISABEL.

        “He various changes of the world had known,
         And some vicissitudes of human fate,
         Still altering, never in a steady state
         Good after ill, and after pain delight,
         Alternate, like the scenes of day and night.”

                “Ladies whose bright eyes
         Rain influence.”

        “But who the limits of that power shall trace,
         Which a brave people into life can bring,
         Or hide at will, for freedom combating
         By just revenge inflamed?”


For many years there had never been any doubt in the mind of Robert
Worth as to the ultimate destiny of Texas, though he was by no means
an adventurer, and had come into the beautiful land by a sequence of
natural and business-like events. He was born in New York. In that city
he studied his profession, and in eighteen hundred and three began its
practice in an office near Contoit’s Hotel, opposite the City Park. One
day he was summoned there to attend a sick man. His patient proved to
be Don Jaime Urrea, and the rich Mexican grandee conceived a warm
friendship for the young physician.

At that very time, France had just ceded to the United States the
territory of Louisiana, and its western boundary was a subject about
which Americans were then angrily disputing. They asserted that it was
the Rio Grande; but Spain, who naturally did not want Americans so
near her own territory, denied the claim, and made the Sabine River
the dividing line. And as Spain had been the original possessor of
Louisiana, she considered herself authority on the subject.

The question was on every tongue, and it was but natural that it
should be discussed by Urrea and his physician. In fact, they talked
continually of the disputed boundary, and of Mexico. And Mexico was then
a name to conjure by. She was as yet a part of Spain, and a sharer in
all her ancient glories. She was a land of romance, and her very name
tasted on the lips, of gold, and of silver, and of precious stones.
Urrea easily persuaded the young man to return to Mexico with him.

The following year there was a suspicious number of American visitors
and traders in San Antonio, and one of the Urreas was sent with a
considerable number of troops to garrison the city. For Spain was well
aware that, however statesmen might settle the question, the young
and adventurous of the American people considered Texas United States
territory, and would be well inclined to take possession of it by force
of arms, if an opportunity offered.

Robert Worth accompanied General Urrea to San Antonio, and the visit
was decisive as to his future life. The country enchanted him. He was
smitten with love for it, as men are smitten with a beautiful face.
And the white Moorish city had one special charm for him--it was seldom
quite free from Americans, Among the mediaeval loungers in the narrow
streets, it filled his heart with joy to see at intervals two or three
big men in buckskin or homespun. And he did not much wonder that the
Morisco-Hispano-Mexican feared these Anglo-Americans, and suspected them
of an intention to add Texan to their names.

His inclination to remain in San Antonio was settled by his marriage.
Dona Maria Flores, though connected with the great Mexican families of
Yturbide and Landesa, owned much property in San Antonio. She had been
born within its limits, and educated in its convent, and a visit to
Mexico and New Orleans had only strengthened her attachment to her own
city. She was a very pretty woman, with an affectionate nature, but she
was not intellectual. Even in the convent the sisters had not considered
her clever.

But men often live very happily with commonplace wives, and Robert Worth
had never regretted that his Maria did not play on the piano, and paint
on velvet, and work fine embroideries for the altars. They had passed
nearly twenty-six years together in more than ordinary content and
prosperity. Yet no life is without cares and contentions, and Robert
Worth had had to face circumstances several times, which had brought the
real man to the front.

The education of his children had been such a crisis. He had two sons
and two daughters, and for them he anticipated a wider and grander
career than he had chosen for himself. When his eldest child, Thomas,
had reached the age of fourteen, he determined to send him to New York.
He spoke to Dona Maria of this intention. He described Columbia to her
with all the affectionate pride of a student for his alma mater. The
boy’s grandmother also still lived in the home wherein, he himself had
grown to manhood. His eyes filled with tears when he remembered the red
brick house in Canal Street, with its white door and dormer windows, and
its one cherry tree in the strip of garden behind.

But Dona Maria’s national and religious principles, or rather
prejudices, were very strong. She regarded the college of San Juan de
Lateran in Mexico as the fountainhead of knowledge. Her confessor had
told her so. All the Yturbides and Landesas had graduated at San Juan.

But the resolute father would have none of San Juan. “I know all about
it, Maria,” he said. “They will teach Thomas Latin very thoroughly. They
will make him proficient in theology and metaphysics. They will let him
dabble in algebra and Spanish literature; and with great pomp, they will
give him his degree, and ‘the power of interpreting Aristotle all over
the world.’ What kind of an education is that, for a man who may have to
fight the battles of life in this century?”

And since the father carried his point it is immaterial what precise
methods he used. Men are not fools even in a contest with women. They
usually get their own way, if they take the trouble to go wisely and
kindly about it. Two years afterwards, Antonia followed her brother to
New York, and this time, the mother made less opposition. Perhaps she
divined that opposition would have been still more useless than in the
case of the boy. For Robert Worth had one invincible determination; it
was, that this beautiful child, who so much resembled a mother whom
he idolized, should be, during the most susceptible years of her life,
under that mother’s influence.

And he was well repaid for the self-denial her absence entailed,
when Antonia came back to him, alert, self-reliant, industrious, an
intelligent and responsive companion, a neat and capable housekeeper,
who insensibly gave to his home that American air it lacked, and who set
upon his table the well-cooked meats and delicate dishes which he had
often longed for.

John, the youngest boy, was still in New York finishing his course of
study; but regarding Isabel, there seemed to be a tacit relinquishment
of the purpose, so inflexibly carried out with her brothers and sister.
Isabel was entirely different from them. Her father had watched her
carefully, and come to the conviction that it would be impossible to
make her nature take the American mintage. She was as distinctly Iberian
as Antonia was Anglo-American.

In her brothers the admixture of races had been only as alloy to metal.
Thomas Worth was but a darker copy of his father. John had the romance
and sensitive honor of old Spain, mingled with the love of liberty, and
the practical temper, of those Worths who had defied both Charles the
First and George the Third. But Isabel had no soul-kinship with her
father’s people. Robert Worth had seen in the Yturbide residencia
in Mexico the family portraits which they had brought with them from
Castile. Isabel was the Yturbide of her day. She had all their physical
traits, and from her large golden-black eyes the same passionate soul
looked forth. He felt that it would be utter cruelty to send her among
people who must always be strangers to her.

So Isabel dreamed away her childhood at her mother’s side, or with
the sisters in the convent, learning from them such simple and useless
matters as they considered necessary for a damosel of family and
fortune. On the night of the Senora Valdez’s reception, she had
astonished every one by the adorable grace of her dancing, and the
captivating way in which she used her fan. Her fingers touched the
guitar as if they had played it for a thousand years. She sang a Spanish
Romancero of El mio Cid with all the fire and tenderness of a Castilian
maid.

Her father watched her with troubled eyes. He almost felt as if he had
no part in her. And the thought gave him an unusual anxiety, for he
knew this night that the days were fast approaching which would test to
extremity the affection which bound his family together. He contrived to
draw Antonia aside for a few moments.

“Is she not wonderful?” he asked. “When did she learn these things? I
mean the way in which she does them?”

Isabel was dancing La Cachoucha, and Antonia looked at her little sister
with eyes full of loving speculation. Her answer dropped slowly from her
lips, as if a conviction was reluctantly expressed:

“The way must be a gift from the past--her soul has been at school
before she was born here. Father, are you troubled? What is it? Not
Isabel, surely?”

“Not Isabel, primarily. Antonia, I have been expecting something for
twenty years. It is coming.”

“And you are sorry?”

“I am anxious, that is all. Go back to the dancers. In the morning we
can talk.”

In the morning the doctor was called very early by some one needing his
skill. Antonia heard the swift footsteps and eager voices, and watched
him mount the horse always kept ready saddled for such emergencies, and
ride away with the messenger. The incident in itself was a usual
one, but she was conscious that her soul was moving uneasily and
questioningly in some new and uncertain atmosphere.

She had felt it on her first entrance into Senora Valdez’s gran sala--a
something irrepressible in the faces of all the men present. She
remembered that even the servants had been excited, and that they
stood in small groups, talking with suppressed passion and with much
demonstrativeness. And the officers from the Alamo! How conscious they
had been of their own importance! What airs of condescension and of an
almost insufferable protection they had assumed! Now, that she recalled
the faces of Judge Valdez, and other men of years and position, she
understood that there had been in them something out of tone with the
occasion. In the atmosphere of the festa she had only felt it. In the
solitude of her room she could apprehend its nature.

For she had been born during those stormy days when Magee and Bernardo,
with twelve hundred Americans, first flung the banner of Texan
independence to the wind; when the fall of Nacogdoches sent a thrill of
sympathy through the United States, and enabled Cos and Toledo, and the
other revolutionary generals in Mexico, to carry their arms against Old
Spain to the very doors of the vice-royal palace. She had heard from
her father many a time the whole brave, brilliant story--the same story
which has been made in all ages from the beginning of time. Only
the week before, they had talked it over as they sat under the great
fig-tree together.

“History but repeats itself,” the doctor had said then; “for when
the Mexicans drove the Spaniards, with their court ceremonies, their
monopolies and taxes, back to Spain, they were just doing what the
American colonists did, when they drove the English royalists back
to England. It was natural, too, that the Americans should help the
Mexicans, for, at first, they were but a little band of patriots; and
the American-Saxon has like the Anglo-Saxon an irresistible impulse to
help the weaker side. And oh, Antonia! The cry of Freedom! Who that has
a soul can resist it?”

She remembered this conversation as she stood in the pallid dawning, and
watched her father ride swiftly away. The story of the long struggle in
all its salient features flashed through her mind; and she understood
that it is not the sword alone that gives liberty--that there must be
patience before courage; that great ideas must germinate for years in
the hearts of men before the sword can reap the harvest.

The fascinating memory of Burr passed like a shadow across her dreaming.
The handsome Lafayettes--the gallant Nolans--the daring Hunters--the
thousands of forgotten American traders and explorers--bold and
enterprising--they had sown the seed. For great ideas are as catching as
evil ones. A Mexican, with the iron hand of Old Spain upon him and the
shadow of the Inquisition over him, could not look into the face of an
American, and not feel the thought of Freedom stirring in his heart.

It stirred in her own heart. She stood still a moment to feel
consciously the glow and the enlargement. Then with an impulse natural,
but neither analyzed nor understood, she lifted her prayer-book, and
began to recite “the rising prayer.” She had not said to herself, “from
the love of Freedom to the love of God, it is but a step,” but she
experienced the emotion and felt all the joy of an adoration, simple and
unquestioned, springing as naturally from the soul as the wild flower
from the prairie.

As she knelt, up rose the sun, and flooded her white figure and her fair
unbound hair with the radiance of the early morning. The matin bells
chimed from the convent and the churches, and the singing birds began to
flutter their bright wings, and praise God also, “in their Latin.”

She took her breakfast alone. The Senora never came downstairs so
early. Isabel had wavering inclinations, and generally followed them.
Sometimes, even her father had his cup of strong coffee alone in his
study; so the first meal of the day was usually, as perhaps it ought
to be, a selfishly-silent one. “Too much enthusiasm and chattering at
breakfast, are like too much red at sunrise,” the doctor always said;
“a dull, bad day follows it”--and Antonia’s observation had turned the
little maxim into a superstition.

In the Senora’s room, the precept was either denied, or defied. Antonia
heard the laughter and conversation through the closed door, and easily
divined the subject of it. It was, but natural. The child had a triumph;
one that appealed strongly to her mother’s pride and predilections.
It was a pleasant sight to see them in the shaded sunshine exulting
themselves happily in it.

The Senora, plump and still pretty, reclined upon a large gilded bed.
Its splendid silk coverlet and pillows cased in embroidery and lace made
an effective background for her. She leaned with a luxurious indolence
among them, sipping chocolate and smoking a cigarrito. Isabel was on a
couch of the same description. She wore a satin petticoat, and a loose
linen waist richly trimmed with lace. It showed her beautiful shoulders
and arms to perfection. Her hands were folded above her head. Her tiny
feet, shod in satin, were quivering like a bird’s wings, as if they were
keeping time with the restlessness of her spirit.

She had large eyes, dark and bright; strong eyebrows, a pale complexion
with a flood of brilliant color in the checks, dazzling even teeth,
and a small, handsome mouth. Her black hair was loose and flowing, and
caressed her cheeks and temples in numberless little curls and tendrils.
Her face was one flush of joy and youth. She had a look half-earnest and
half-childlike, and altogether charming. Antonia adored her, and she
was pleased to listen to the child, telling over again the pretty things
that had been said to her.

“Only Don Luis was not there at all, Antonia. There is always something
wanting,” and her voice fell with those sad inflections that are often
only the very excess of delight.

The Senora looked sharply at her. “Don Luis was not desirable. He was
better away--much better!”

“But why?”

“Because, Antonia, he is suspected. There is an American called Houston.
Don Luis met him in Nacogdoches. He has given his soul to him, I think.
He would have fought Morello about him, if the captain could have drawn
his sword in such a quarrel. I should not have known about the affair
had not Senora Valdez told me. Your father says nothing against the
Americans.”

“Perhaps, then, he knows nothing against them.”

“You will excuse me, Antonia; not only the living but the dead must have
heard of their wickedness. They are a nation of ingrates. Ingrates are
cowards. It was these words Captain Morello said, when Don Luis drew his
sword, made a circle with its point and stood it upright in the centre.
It was a challenge to the whole garrigon, and about this fellow Houston,
whom he calls his friend! Holy Virgin preserve us from such Mexicans!”

“It is easier to talk than to fight. Morello’s tongue is sharper than
his sword.”

“Captain Morello was placing his sword beside that of Don Luis, when the
Commandant interfered. He would not permit his officers to fight in such
a quarrel. ‘Santo Dios!’ he said, ‘you shall all have your opportunity
very soon, gentlemen.’ Just reflect upon the folly of a boy like Don
Luis, challenging a soldier like Morello!”

“He was in no danger, mother,” said Antonia scornfully. “Morello is a
bully, who wears the pavement out with his spurs and sabre. His weapons
are for show. Americans, at least, wear their arms for use, and not for
ornament.”

“Listen, Antonia! I will not have them spoken of. They are Jews--or at
least infidels, all of them!--the devil himself is their father--the
bishop, when he was here last confirmation, told me so.”

“Mother!”

“At least they are unbaptized Christians, Antonia. If you are not
baptized, the devil sends you to do his work. As for Don Luis, he is a
very Judas! Ah, Maria Santissima! how I do pity his good mother!”

“Poor Don Luis!” said Isabel plaintively.

“He is so handsome, and he sings like a very angel. And he loves my
father; he wanted to be a doctor, so that he could always be with him.
I dare say this man called Houston is no better than a Jew, and perhaps
very ugly beside. Let us talk no more about him and the Americans. I
am weary of them; as Tia Rachella says, ‘they have their spoon in every
one’s mess.’”

And Antonia, whose heart was burning, only stooped down and closed her
sister’s pretty mouth with a kiss. Her tongue was impatient to speak for
the father, and grandmother, and the friends, so dear to her; but she
possessed great discretion, and also a large share of that rarest of all
womanly graces, the power under provocation, of “putting on Patience the
noble.”




CHAPTER III. BUILDERS OF THE COMMONWEALTH.


     “Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing
     herself like a strong man after sleep and shaking her
     invincible locks.  Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her
     mighty youth and kindling her undazzled eye in the full mid-day beam.”
      --MILTON.

     “And from these grounds, concluding as we doe,
      Warres causes diuerse, so by consequence
     Diuerse we must conclude their natures too:
      For war proceeding from Omnipotence,
     No doubt is holy, wise, and without error;
      The sword, of justice and of sin, the terror.”
                              --LORD BROOKE.

It is the fashion now to live for the present but the men of fifty
years ago, the men who builded the nation, they reverenced the past, and
therefore they could work for the future. As Robert Worth rode through
the streets of San Antonio that afternoon, he was thinking, not of his
own life, but of his children’s and of the generations which should come
after them.

The city was flooded with sunshine, and crowded with a pack-train going
to Sonora; the animals restlessly protesting against the heat and flies;
their Mexican drivers in the pulqueria, spending their last peso with
their compadres, or with the escort of soldiers which was to accompany
them--a little squad of small, lithe men, with round, yellow, beardless
faces, bearing in a singular degree the stamp of being native to
the soil. Their lieutenant, a gorgeously clad officer with a very
distinguished air, was coming slowly down the street to join them. He
bowed, and smiled pleasantly to the doctor as he passed him, and then
in a few moments the word of command and the shouting of men and the
clatter of hoofs invaded the enchanted atmosphere like an insult.

But the tumult scarcely jarred with the thoughts of his mind. They
had been altogether of war and rumors of war. Every hour that subtile
consciousness of coming events, which makes whole communities at
times prescient, was becoming stronger. “If the powers of the air have
anything to do with the destinies of men,” he muttered, “there must be
unseen battalions around me. The air I am breathing is charged with the
feeling of battle.”

After leaving the city there were only a few Mexican huts on the shady
road leading to his own house. All within them were asleep, even
the fighting cocks tied outside were dozing on their perches. He was
unusually weary, he had been riding since dawn, and his heart had
not been in sympathy with his body, it had said no good cheer to it,
whispered no word of courage or promise.

All at once his physical endurance seemed exhausted, and he saw the
white wall and arched gateway of his garden and the turrets of his home
with an inexpressible relief. But it was the hour of siesta, and he was
always careful not to let the requirements of his profession disturb his
household. So he rode quietly to the rear, where he found a peon nodding
within the stable door. He opened his eyes unnaturally wide, and rose to
serve his master.

“See thou rub the mare well down, and give her corn and water.”

“To be sure, Senior, that is to be done. A stranger has been here
to-day; an American.”

“What did he say to thee?”

“That he would call again, Senor.”

The incident was not an unusual one, and it did not trouble the doctor’s
mind. There was on the side of the house a low extension containing two
rooms. These rooms belonged exclusively to him. One was his study, his
office, his covert, the place to which he went when he wanted to be
alone with his own soul. There were a bed and bath and refreshments in
the other room. He went directly to it, and after eating and washing,
fell into a profound sleep.

At the hour before Angelus the house was as noisy and busy as if it had
been an inn. The servants were running hither and thither, all of them
expressing themselves in voluble Spanish. The cooks were quarrelling in
the kitchen. Antonia was showing the table men, as she had to do afresh
every day, how to lay the cloth and serve the dishes in the American
fashion. When the duty was completed, she went into the garden to listen
for the Angelus. The young ladies of to-day would doubtless consider her
toilet frightfully unbecoming; but Antonia looked lovely in it, though
but a white muslin frock, with a straight skirt and low waist and short,
full sleeves. It was confined by a blue belt with a gold buckle, and her
feet were in sandalled slippers of black satin.

The Angelus tolled, and the thousands of Hail Maries! which blended with
its swinging vibrations were uttered, and left to their fate, as all
spoken words must be. Antonia still observed the form. It lent for a
moment a solemn beauty to her face. She was about to re-enter the house,
when she saw a stranger approaching it. He was dressed in a handsome
buckskin suit, and a wide Mexican hat, but she knew at once that he was
an American, and she waited to receive him.

As soon as he saw her, he removed his hat and approached with it in
his hand. Perhaps he was conscious that the act not only did homage to
womanhood, but revealed more perfectly a face of remarkable beauty and
nobility. For the rest, he was very tall, powerfully built, elegantly
proportioned, and his address had the grace and polish of a cultured
gentleman.

“I wish to see Dr. Worth, Dona.”

With a gentle inclination of the head, she led him to the door of her
father’s office. She was the only one in the Doctor’s family at all
familiar with the room. The Senora said so many books made her feel as
if she were in a church or monastery; she was afraid to say anything
but paternosters in it. Isabel cowered before the poor skeleton in the
corner, and the centipedes and snakes that filled the bottles on the
shelves. There was not a servant that would enter the room.

But Antonia did not regard books as a part of some vague spiritual
power. She knew the history of the skeleton. She had seen the death of
many of those “little devils” corked up in alcohol. She knew that at
this hour, if her father were at home he was always disengaged, and she
opened the door fearlessly, saying, “Father, here is a gentleman who
wishes to see you.”

The doctor had quite refreshed himself, and, in a house-suit of clean,
white linen, was lying on a couch reading. He arose with alacrity, and
with his pleasant smile seemed to welcome the intruder, as he stepped
behind him and closed the door. Antonia had disappeared. They were quite
alone.

“You are Doctor Robert Worth, sir?”

Their eyes met, their souls knew each other.

“And you are Sam Houston?”

The questions were answered in a hand grip, a sympathetic smile on both
faces--the freemasonry of kindred spirits.

“I have a letter from your son Thomas, doctor, and I think, also, that
you will have something to say to me, and I to you.”

The most prudent of patriots could not have resisted this man. He had
that true imperial look which all born rulers of men possess--that look
that half coerces, and wholly persuades. Robert Worth acknowledged its
power by his instant and decisive answer.

“I have, indeed, much to say to you. We shall have dinner directly, then
you will give the night to me?”

After a short conversation he led him into the sala and introduced him
to Antonia. He himself had to prepare the Senora for her visitor, and
he had a little quaking of the heart as he entered her room. She was
dressed for dinner, and turned with a laughing face to meet him.

“I have been listening to the cooks quarrelling over the olla, Roberto.
But what can my poor Manuel say when your Irishwoman attacks him. Listen
to her! ‘Take your dirty stew aff the fire then! Shure it isn’t fit for
a Christian to ate at all!’”

“I hope it is, Maria, for we have a visitor to-night.”

“Who, then, my love?”

“Mr. Houston.”

“Sam Houston? Holy Virgin of Guadalupe preserve us! I will not see the
man.”

“I think you will, Maria. He has brought this letter for you from our
son Thomas; and he has been so kind as to take charge of some fine
horses, and sell them well for him in San Antonio. When a man does us a
kindness, we should say thank you.”

“That is truth, if the man is not the Evil One. As for this Sam Houston,
you should have heard what was said of him at the Valdez’s.”

“I did hear. Everything was a lie.”

“But he is a very common man.”

“Maria, do you call a soldier, a lawyer, a member of the United States
Congress, a governor of a great State like Tennessee, a common man?
Houston has been all of these things.”

“It is, however, true that he has lived with Indians, and with those
Americans, who are bad, who have no God, who are infidels, and perhaps
even cannibals. If he is a good man, why does he live with bad men? Not
even the saints could do that. A good man should be in his home. Why
does he not stay at home.”

“Alas! Maria, that is a woman’s fault. He loved a beautiful girl. He
married her. My dear one, she did not bless his life as you have blessed
mine. No one knows what his sorrow was, for he told no one. And he never
blamed her, only he left his high office and turned his back forever on
his home.”

“Ah! the cruel woman. Holy Virgin, what hard hearts thou hast to pray
for!”

“Come down and smile upon him, Maria. I should like him to see a
high-born Mexican lady. Are they not the kindest and fairest among all
God’s women? I know, at least, Maria, that you are kind and fair”; and
he took her hands, and drew her within his embrace.

What good wife can resist her husband’s wooing? Maria did not. She
lifted her face, her eyes shone through happy tears, she whispered
softly: “My Robert, it is a joy to please you. I will be kind; I will
be grateful about Thomas. You shall see that I will make a pleasant
evening.”

So the triumphant husband went down, proud and happy, with his smiling
wife upon his arm. Isabel was already in the room. She also wore a white
frock, but her hair was pinned back with gold butterflies, and she had
a beautiful golden necklace around her throat. And the Senora kept
her word. She paid her guest great attention. She talked to him of his
adventures with the Indians. She requested her daughters to sing to him.
She told him stories of the old Castilian families with which she was
connected, and described her visit to New Orleans with a great deal of
pleasant humor. She felt that she was doing herself justice; that she
was charming; and, consequently, she also was charmed with the guest and
the occasion which had been so favorable to her.

After the ladies had retired, the doctor led his visitor into his study.
He sat down silently and placed a chair for Houston. Both men hesitated
for a moment to open the conversation. Worth, because he was treading
on unknown ground; Houston, because he did not wish to force, even by a
question, a resolution which he felt sure would come voluntarily.

The jar of tobacco stood between them, and they filled their pipes
silently. Then Worth laid a letter upon the table, and said: “I
unstand{sic} from this, that my son Thomas thinks the time has come for
decisive action.”

“Thomas Worth is right. With such souls as his the foundation of the
state must be laid.”

“I am glad Thomas has taken the position he has; but you must remember,
sir, that he is unmarried and unembarrassed by many circumstances which
render decisive movement on my part a much more difficult thing. Yet no
man now living has watched the Americanizing of Texas with the interest
that I have.”

“You have been long on the watch, sir.”

“I was here when my countrymen came first, in little companies of five
or ten men. I saw the party of twenty, who joined the priest Hidalgo in
eighteen hundred and ten, when Mexico made her first attempt to throw
off the Spanish yoke.”

“An unsuccessful attempt.”

“Yes. The next year I made a pretended professional journey to
Chihuahua, to try and save their lives. I failed. They were shot with
Hidalgo there.”

“Yet the strife for liberty went on.”

“It did. Two years afterwards, Magee and Bernardo, with twelve hundred
Americans, raised the standard of independence on the Trinity River. I
saw them them{sic} take this very city, though it was ably defended by
Salcedo. They fought like heroes. I had many of the wounded in my house.
I succored them with my purse.

“It was a great deed for a handful of men.”

“The fame of it brought young Americans by hundreds here. To a man they
joined the Mexican party struggling to free themselves from the tyranny
of old Spain. I do not think any one of them received money. The love
of freedom and the love of adventure were alike their motive and their
reward.”

“Mexico owed these men a debt she has forgotten.”

“She forgot it very quickly. In the following year, though they had
again defended San Antonio against the Spaniards, the Mexicans drove all
the Americans out of the city their rifles had saved.”

“You were here; tell me the true reason.”

“It was not altogether ingratitude. It was the instinct of
self-preservation. The very bravery of the Americans made the men whom
they had defended hate and fear them; and there was a continual influx
of young men from the States. The Mexicans said to each other: ‘There is
no end to these Americans. Very soon they will make a quarrel and turn
their arms against us. They do not conform to our customs, and they will
not take an order from any officer but their own.’”

Houston smiled. “It is away the Saxon race has,” he said. “The old
Britons made the same complaint of them. They went first to England to
help the Britons fight the Romans, and they liked the country so well,
they determined to stay there. If I remember rightly the old Britons had
to let them do so.”

“It is an old political situation. You can go back to Genesis and find
Pharaoh arguing about the Jews in the same manner.”

“What happened after this forcible expulsion of the American element
from Texas?”

“Mexican independence was for a time abandoned, and the Spanish viceroys
were more tyrannical than ever. But Americans still came, though they
pursued different tactics. They bought land and settled on the great
rivers. In eighteen twenty-one, Austin, with the permission of the
Spanish viceroy in Mexico, introduced three hundred families.”

“That was a step in the right direction; but I am astonished the viceroy
sanctioned it.”

“Apodoca, who was then viceroy, was a Spaniard of the proudest type.
He had very much the same contempt for the Mexicans that an old English
viceroy in New York had for the colonists he was sent to govern. I dare
say any of them would have permitted three hundred German families to
settle in some part of British America, as far from New York as Texas
is from Mexico. I do not need to tell you that Austin’s colonists are
a band of choice spirits, hardy working men, trained in the district
schools of New England and New York--nearly every one of them a farmer
or mechanic.”

“They were the very material liberty needed. They have made homes.”

“That is the truth. The fighters who preceded them owned nothing but
their horses and their rifles. But these men brought with them their
wives and their children, their civilization, their inborn love of
freedom and national faith. They accepted the guarantee of the Spanish
government, and they expected the Spanish government to keep its
promises.”

“It did not.”

“It had no opportunity. The colonists were hardly settled when the
standard of revolt against Spain was again raised. Santa Anna took
the field for a republican form of government, and once more a body of
Americans, under the Tennesseean, Long, joined the Mexican army.”

“I remember that, well.”

“In eighteen twenty-four, Santa Anna, Victoria and Bravo drove the
Spaniards forever from Mexico, and then they promulgated the famous
constitution of eighteen twenty-four. It was a noble constitution,
purely democratic and federal, and the Texan colonists to a man
gladly swore to obey it. The form was altogether elective, and what
particularly pleased the American element was the fact that the local
government of every State was left to itself.”

Houston laughed heartily. “Do you know, Worth,” he said, “State Rights
is our political religion. The average American citizen would expect the
Almighty to conform to a written constitution, and recognize the rights
of mankind.”

“I don’t think he expects more than he gets, Houston. Where is there a
grander constitution than is guaranteed to us in His Word; or one that
more completely recognizes the rights of all humanity?”

“Thank you, Worth. I see that I have spoken better than I knew. I was
sitting in the United States Congress, when this constitution passed,
and very much occupied with the politics of Tennessee.”

“I will not detain you with Mexican politics. It may be briefly said
that for the last ten years there has been a constant fight between
Pedraza, Guerrero, Bustamante and Santa Anna for the Presidency of
Mexico. After so much war and misery the country is now ready to resign
all the blessings the constitution of eighteen twenty-four promised her.
For peace she is willing to have a dictator in Santa Anna.”

“If Mexicans want a dictator let them bow down to Santa Anna! But do you
think the twenty thousand free-born Americans in Texas are going to have
a dictator? They will have the constitution of eighteen twenty-four--or
they will have independence, and make their own constitution! Yes, sir!”

“You know the men for whom you speak?”

“I have been up and down among them for two years. Just after I came
to Texas I was elected to the convention which sent Stephen Austin to
Mexico with a statement of our wrongs. Did we get any redress? No, sir!
And as for poor Austin, is he not in the dungeons of the Inquisition? We
have waited two years for an answer. Great heavens Doctor, surely that
is long enough!”

“Was this convention a body of any influence?”

“Influence! There were men there whose names will never be forgotten.
They met in a log house; they wore buckskin and homespun; but I tell
you, sir, they were debating the fate of unborn millions.”

“Two years since Austin went to Mexico?”

“A two years’ chapter of tyranny. In them Santa Anna has quite
overthrown the republic of which we were a part. He has made himself
dictator, and, because our authorities have protested against the
change, they have been driven from office by a military force. I tell
you, sir, the petty outrages everywhere perpetrated by petty officials
have filled the cup of endurance. It is boiling over. Now, doctor, what
are you going to do? Are you with us, or against us?”

“I have told you that I have been with my countrymen always--heart and
soul with them.”

The doctor spoke with some irritation, and Houston laid his closed hand
hard upon the table to emphasize his reply:

“Heart and soul! Very good! But we want your body now. You must tuck
your bowie-knife and your revolvers in your belt, and take your rifle in
your hand, and be ready to help us drive the Mexican force out of this
very city.”

“When it comes to that I shall be no laggard.”

But he was deathly pale, for he was suffering as men suffer who feel the
sweet bonds of wife and children and home, and dread the rending of
them apart. In a moment, however, the soul behind his white face made
it visibly luminous. “Houston,” he said, “whenever the cause of freedom
needs me, I am ready. I shall want no second call. But is it not
possible, that even yet--”

“It is impossible to avert what is already here. Within a few days,
perhaps to-morrow, you will hear the publication of an edict from Santa
Anna, ordering every American to give up his arms.”

“What! Give up our arms! No, no, by Heaven! I will die fighting for
mine, rather.”

“Exactly. That is how every white man in Texas feels about it. And if
such a wonder as a coward existed among them, he understands that he
may as well die fighting Mexicans, as die of hunger or be scalped by
Indians. A large proportion of the colonists depend on their rifles for
their daily food. All of them know that they must defend their own
homes from the Comanche, or see them perish. Now, do you imagine that
Americans will obey any such order? By all the great men of seventeen
seventy-five, if they did, I would go over to the Mexicans and help them
to wipe the degenerate cowards out of existence!”

He rose as he spoke; he looked like a flame, and his words cut like a
sword. Worth caught fire at his vehemence and passion. He clasped his
hands in sympathy as he walked with him to the door. They stood silently
together for a moment on the threshold, gazing into the night. Over the
glorious land the full moon hung, enamoured. Into the sweet, warm air
mockingbirds were pouring low, broken songs of ineffable melody. The
white city in the mystical light looked like an enchanted city. It was
so still that the very houses looked asleep.

“It is a beautiful land,” said the doctor.

“It is worthy of freedom,” answered Houston. Then he went with long,
swinging steps down the garden, and into the shadows beyond, and Worth
turned in and closed the door.

He had been watching for this very hour for twenty years; and yet he
found himself wholly unprepared for it. Like one led by confused and
uncertain thoughts, he went about the room mechanically locking up his
papers, and the surgical instruments he valued so highly. As he did so
he perceived the book he had been reading when Houston entered. It was
lying open where he had laid it down. A singular smile flitted over
his face. He lifted it and carried it closer to the light. It was his
college Cicero.

“I was nineteen years old when I marked that passage,” he said; “and I
do not think I have ever read it since, until to-night. I was reading it
when Houston came into the room. Is it a message, I wonder?--

“‘But when thou considerest everything carefully and thoughtfully; of
all societies none is of more importance, none more dear, than that
which unites us with the commonwealth. Our parents, children, relations
and neighbors are dear, but our fatherland embraces the whole round of
these endearments. In its defence, who would not dare to die, if only he
could assist it?”




CHAPTER IV. THE SHINING BANDS OF LOVE.

        “O blest be he!  O blest be he!
            Let him all blessings prove,
         Who made the chains, the shining chains,
            The holy chains of love!”
                         --Spanish Ballad.
        “If you love a lady bright,
            Seek, and you shall find a way
            All that love would say, to say
         If you watch the occasion right.”
                         --Spanish Ballad.

In the morning Isabel took breakfast with her sister. This was always
a pleasant event to Antonia. She petted Isabel, she waited upon her,
sweetened her chocolate, spread her cakes with honey, and listened to
all her complaints of Tia Rachela. Isabel came gliding in when Antonia
was about half way through the meal. Her scarlet petticoat was gorgeous,
her bodice white as snow, her hair glossy as a bird’s wing, but her lips
drooped and trembled, and there was the shadow of tears in her eyes.
Antonia kissed their white fringed lids, held the little form close
in her arms, and fluttered about in that motherly way which Isabel had
learned to demand and enjoy.

“What has grieved you this morning, little dove?”

“It is Tia Rachela, as usual. The cross old woman! She is going to tell
mi madre something. Antonia, you must make her keep her tongue between
her teeth. I promised her to confess to Fray Ignatius, and she said
I must also tell mi madre. I vowed to say twenty Hail Marias and ten
Glorias, and she said ‘I ought to go back to the convent.’”

“But what dreadful thing have you been doing, Iza?”

Iza blushed and looked into her chocolate cup, as she answered
slowly: “I gave--a--flower--away. Only a suchil flower, Antonia,
that--I--wore--at--my--breast--last--night.”

“Whom did you give it to, Iza?”

Iza hesitated, moved her chair close to Antonia, and then hid her face
on her sister’s breast.

“But this is serious, darling. Surely you did not give it to Senor
Houston?”

“Could you think I was so silly? When madre was talking to him last
night, and when I was singing my pretty serenade, he heard nothing at
all. He was thinking his own thoughts.”

“Not to Senor Houston? Who then? Tell me, Iza.”

“To--Don Luis.”

“Don Luis! But he is not here. He went to the Colorado.”

“How stupid are you, Antonia! In New York they did not teach you to
put this and that together. As soon as I saw Senor Houston, I said to
myself: ‘Don Luis was going to him; very likely they have met each other
on the road; very likely Don Luis is back in San Antonio. He would
not want to go away without bidding me good-by,’ and, of course, I was
right.”

“But when did you see him last night? You never left the room.”

“So many things are possible. My heart said to me when the talk was going
on, ‘Don Luis is waiting under the oleanders,’ and I walked on to the
balcony and there he was, and he looked so sad, and I dropped my
suchil flower to him; and Rachela saw me, for I think she has a million
eyes,--and that is the whole matter.”

“But why did not Don Luis come in?”

“Mi madre forbade me to speak to him. That is the fault of the
Valdez’s.”

“Then you disobeyed mi madre, and you know what Fray Ignatius and the
Sisters have taught you about the fourth command.”

“Oh, indeed, I did not think of the fourth command! A sin without
intention has not penance; and consider, Antonia, I am now sixteen,
and they would shut me up like a chicken in its shell. Antonia, sweet
Antonia, speak to Rachela, and make your little Iza happy. Fear is so
bad for me. See, I do not even care for my cakes and honey this morning.

“I will give Rachela the blue silk kerchief I brought from New York. She
will forget a great deal for that, and then, Iza, darling, you must tell
Fray Ignatius of your sin, because it is not good to have an unconfessed
sin on the soul.”

“Antonia, do not say such cruel things. I have confessed to you. Fray
Ignatius will give me a hard penance. Perhaps he may say to mi madre:
‘That child had better go back to the convent. I say so, because I
have knowledge.’ And now I am tired of that life; I am almost a woman,
Antonia, am I not?”

Antonia looked tenderly into her face. She saw some inscrutable change
there. All was the same, and all was different. She did not understand
that it was in the eyes, those lookouts of the soul. They had lost the
frank, inquisitive stare of childhood; they were tender and misty;
they reflected a heart passionate and fearful, in which love was making
himself lord of all.

Antonia was not without experience. There was in New York a gay,
handsome youth, to whom her thoughts lovingly turned. She had promised
to trust him, and to wait for him, and neither silence nor distance
had weakened her faith or her affection. Don Luis had also made her
understand how hard it was to leave Isabel, just when he had hoped to
woo and win her. He had asked her to watch over his beloved, and to say
a word in his favor when all others would be condemning him.

Her sympathy had been almost a promise, and, indeed, she thought Isabel
could hardly have a more suitable lover. He was handsome, gallant, rich,
and of good morals and noble family. They had been much together in
their lives; their childish affection had been permitted; she felt quite
sure that the parents of both had contemplated a stronger affection and
a more lasting tie between them.

And evidently Don Luis had advanced further in his suit than the Senora
was aware of. He had not been able to resist the charm of secretly
wooing the fresh young girl he hoped to make his wife. Their love must
be authorized and sanctioned; true, he wished that; but the charm
of winning the prize before it was given was irresistible. Antonia
comprehended all without many words; but she took her sister into the
garden, where they could be quite alone, and she sought the girl’s
confidence because she was sure she could be to her a loving guide.

Isabel was ready enough to talk, and the morning was conducive to
confidence. They strolled slowly between the myrtle hedges in the
sweet gloom of overshadowing trees, hearing only like a faint musical
confusion the mingled murmur of the city.

“It was just here,” said Isabel. “I was walking and sitting and doing
nothing at all but looking at the trees and the birds and feeling happy,
and Don Luis came to me. He might have come down from the skies, I was
so astonished. And he looked so handsome, and he said such words! Oh,
Antonia! they went straight to my heart.”

“When was this, dear?”

“It was in the morning. I had been to mass with Rachela. I had said
every prayer with my whole heart, and Rachela told me I might stay in
the garden until the sun grew hot. And as soon as Rachela was gone, Don
Luis came--came just as sudden as an angel.”

“He must have followed you from mass.”

“Perhaps.”

“He should not have done that.”

“If a thing is delightful, nobody should do it. Luis said he knew that
it was decided that we should marry, but that he wanted me to be his
wife because I loved him. His face was shining with joy, his eyes were
like two stars, he called me his life, his adorable mistress, his queen,
and he knelt down and took my hands and kissed them. I was too happy to
speak.”

“Oh, Iza!”

“Very well, Antonia! It is easy to say ‘Oh, Iza’; but what would you
have done? And reflect on this; no one, not even Rachela, saw him. So
then, our angels were quite agreeable and willing. And I--I was in such
joy, that I went straight in and told Holy Maria of my happiness. But
when a person has not been in love, how can they know; and I see that
you are going to say as Sister Sacrementa said to Lores Valdez--‘You are
a wicked girl, and such things are not to be spoken of!’”

“Oh, my darling one, I am not so cruel. I think you did nothing very
wrong, Iza. When love comes into your soul, it is like a new life. If it
is a pure, good love, it is a kind of murder to kill it in any way.”

“It has just struck me, Antonia, that you may be in love also.”

“When I was in New York, our brother Jack had a friend, and he loved me,
and I loved him.”

“But did grandmamma let him talk to you?”

“He came every night. We went walking and driving. In the summer we
sailed upon the river; in the winter we skated upon the ice. He helped
me with my lessons. He went with me to church.”

“And was grandmamma with you?”

“Very seldom. Often Jack was with us; more often we were quite alone.”

“Holy Virgin! Who ever heard tell of such good fortune? Consuelo
Ladrello had never been an hour alone with Don Domingo before they were
married.”

“A good girl does not need a duenna to watch her; that is what I think.
And an American girl, pure and free, would not suffer herself to be
watched by any woman, old or young. Her lover comes boldly into her
home; she is too proud, to meet him in secret.”

“Ah! that would be a perfect joy. That is what I would like! But fancy
what Rachela would say; and mi madre would cover her eyes and refuse
to see me if I said such words. Believe this. It was in the spring Luis
told me that he loved me, and though I have seen him often since, he
has never found another moment to speak to me alone, not for one five
minutes. Oh, Antonia! let me have one five minutes this afternoon! He
is going away, and there is to be war, and I may never, never see him
again!”

“Do not weep, little dove. How can you see him this afternoon?”

“He will be here, in this very place, I know he will. When he put the
suchil flower to his lips last night he made me understand it. This
afternoon, during the hour of siesta, will you come with me? Only for
five minutes, Antonia! You can manage Rachela, I am sure you can.”

“I can manage Rachela, and you shall have one whole hour, Iza. One
whole hour! Come, now, we must make a visit to our mother. She will be
wondering at our delay.”

The Senora had not yet risen. She had taken her chocolate and smoked her
cigarito, but was still drowsing. “I have had a bad night, children,”
 she said full of dreadful dreams. “It must have been that American. Yet,
Holy Mother, how handsome he is! And I assure you that he has the good
manners of a courtier. Still, it was an imprudence, and Senora Valdez
will make some great thing of it.”

“You were in your own house, mother. What has Senora Valdez to do with
the guest in it? We might as well make some great thing about Captain
Morello being present at her party.”

“I have to say to you, Antonia, that Morello is a Castilian; his family
is without a cross. He has the parchments of his noble ancestry to
show.”

“And Senor Houston is an American--Scotch-American, he said, last night.
Pardon, my mother, but do you know what the men of Scotland are?”

“Si!, They are monsters! Fray Ignatius has told me. They are heretics
of the worst kind. It is their special delight to put to death good
Catholic priests. I saw that in a book; it must be true.”

“Oh, no, mother! It is not true! It is mere nonsense. Scotchmen do not
molest priests, women, and children. They are the greatest fighters in
the world.”

“Quien sabe? Who has taught you so much about these savages?”

“Indeed, mother, they are not savages. They are a very learned race of
men, and very pious also. Jack has many Scotch-American friends. I know
one of them very well”; and with the last words her face flushed, and
her voice fell insensibly into slow and soft inflections.

“Jack knows many of them! That is likely. Your father would send him to
New York. All kinds of men are in New York. Fray Ignatius says they have
to keep an army of police there. No wonder! And my son is so full
of nobilities, so generous, so honorable, he will not keep himself
exclusive. He is the true resemblance of my brother Don Juan Flores.
Juan was always pitying the poor and making friends with those beneath
him. At last he went into the convent of the Bernardines and died like a
very saint.”

“I think our Jack will be more likely to die like a very hero. If there
is any thing Jack hates, it is oppression. He would right a beggar, if
he saw him wronged.”

“Poco a poco! I am tired of rights and wrongs. Let us talk a little
about our dresses, for there will be a gay winter. Senora Valdez assured
me of it; many soldiers are coming here, and we shall have parties, and
cock-fights, and, perhaps, even a bull-feast.”

“Oh!” cried Isabel clapping her hands enthusiastically; “a bull-feast!
That is what I long to see!”

At this moment the doctor entered the room, and Isabel ran to meet
him. No father could have resisted her pretty ways, her kisses, her
endearments, her coaxing diminutives of speech, her childlike loveliness
and simplicity.

“What is making you so happy, Queridita?” [1]

“Mi madre says there is perhaps to be a bullfeast this winter. Holy
Virgin, think of it! That is the one thing I long to see!”

With her clinging arms around him, and her eager face lifted to his for
sympathy, the father could not dash the hope which he knew in his heart
was very unlikely to be realized. Neither did he think it necessary
to express opposition or disapproval for what had as yet no tangible
existence. So he answered her with smiles and caresses, and a little
quotation which committed him to nothing:

        “As, Panem et Circenses was the cry
        Among the Roman populace of old;
        So, Pany Toros! is the cry of Spain.”


The Senora smiled appreciatively and put out her hand. “Pan y Toros!”
 she repeated. “And have you reflected, children, that no other nation
in the world cries it. Only Spain and her children! That is because
only men of the Spanish race are brave enough to fight bulls, and only
Spanish bulls are brave enough to fight men.”

She was quite pleased with herself for this speech, and finding no one
inclined to dispute the statement, she went on to describe a festival
of bulls she had been present at in the city of Mexico. The subject
delighted her, and she grew eloquent over it; and, conscious only of
Isabel’s shining eyes and enthusiastic interest, she did not notice the
air of thoughtfulness which had settled over her husband’s face, nor yet
Antonia’s ill-disguised weariness and anxiety.

On the night of the Valdez’s party her father had said he would talk
with her. Antonia was watching for the confidence, but not with any
great desire. Her heart and her intelligence told her it would mean
trouble, and she had that natural feeling of youth which gladly
postpones the evil day. And while her father was silent she believed
there were still possibilities of escape from it. So she was not sorry
that he again went to his office in the city without any special word
for her. It was another day stolen from the uncertain future, for the
calm usage of the present, and she was determined to make happiness in
it.

When all was still in the afternoon Isabel came to her. She would not
put the child to the necessity of again asking her help. She rose at
once, and said:

“Sit here, Iza, until I have opened the door for us. Then she took a
rich silk kerchief, blue as the sky, in her hand, and went to the wide,
matted hall. There she found Rachela, asleep on a cane lounge. Antonia
woke her.

“Rachela, I wish to go into the garden for an hour.”

“The Senorita does the thing she wants to, Rachela would not presume to
interfere. The Senorita became an Americano in New York.”

“There are good things in New York, Rachela; for instance, this
kerchief.”

“That is indeed magnificent!”

“If you permit my sister to walk in the garden with me, I shall give it
to you this moment.”

“Dona Isabel is different. She is a Mexicaine. She must be watched
continually.”

“For what reason? She is as innocent as an angel.”

“Let her simply grow up, and you will see that she is not innocent as
the angels. Oh, indeed! I could say something about last night! Dona
Isabel has no vocation for a nun; but, gracias a Dios! Rachela is not
yet blind or deaf.”

“Let the child go with me for an hour, Rachela. The kerchief will be so
becoming to you. There is not another in San Antonio like it.”

Rachela was past forty, but not yet past the age of coquetry. “It will
look gorgeous with my gold ear-rings, but--”

“I will give you also the blue satin bow like it, to wear at your
breast.”

“Si, si! I will give the permission, Senorita--for your sake alone. The
kerchief and bow are a little thing to you. To me, they will be a great
adornment. You are not to leave the garden, however, and for one hour’s
walk only, Senorita; certainly there is time for no more.”

“I will take care of Isabel; no harm shall come to her. You may keep
your eyes shut for one hour, Rachela, and you may shut your ears also,
and put your feet on the couch and let them rest. I will watch Isabel
carefully, be sure of that.”

“The child is very clever, and she has a lover already, I fear. Keep
your eyes on the myrtle hedge that skirts the road. I have to say
this--it is not for nothing she wants to walk with you this afternoon.
She would be better fast asleep.”

In a few moments the kerchief and the bow were safely folded in the
capacious pocket of Rachela’s apron, and Isabel and Antonia were softly
treading the shady walk between the myrtle hedges. Rachela’s eyes were
apparently fast closed when the girls pased{sic} her, but she did not
fail to notice how charmingly Isabel had dressed herself. She wore, it
is true, her Spanish costume; but she had red roses at her breast, and
her white lace mantilla over her head.

“Ah! she is a clever little thing!” Rachela muttered. “She knows that
she is irresistible in her Castilian dress. Bah! those French frocks are
enough to drive a man a mile away. I can almost forgive her now. Had she
worn the French frock I would not have forgiven her. I would never have
yielded again, no, not even if the Senorita Antonia should offer me her
scarlet Indian shawl worked in gold. I was always a fool--Holy Mother
forgive me! Well, then; I used to have my own lovers--plenty of
them--handsome young arrieros and rancheros: there was Tadeo, a valento
of the first class: and Buffa--and--well, I will sleep; they do not
remember me, I dare say; and I have forgotten their names.”

In the mean time the sisters sat down beneath a great fig-tree. No
sunshine, no shower, could penetrate its thick foliage. The wide space
beneath the spreading branches was a little parlor, cool and sweet,
and full of soft, green lights, and the earthy smell of turf, and the
wandering scents of the garden.

Isabel’s eyes shone with an incomparable light. She was pale, but
exquisitely beautiful, and even her hands and feet expressed the idea of
expectation. Antonia had a piece of needlework in her hand. She affected
the calmness she did not feel, for her heart was trembling for the
tender little heart beating with so much love and anxiety beside her.

But Isabel’s divination, however arrived at, was not at fault. In a
few moments Don Luis lightly leaped the hedge, and without a moment’s
hesitation sought the shadow of the fig-tree. As he approached, Antonia
looked at him with a new interest. It was not only that he loved Isabel,
but that Isabel loved him. She had given him sympathy before, now she
gave him a sister’s affection.

“How handsome he is!” she thought. “How gallant he looks in his velvet
and silver and embroidered jacket! And how eager are his steps! And how
joyful his face! He is the kind of Romeo that Shakespeare dreamed about!
Isabel is really an angel to him. He would really die for her. What
has this Spanish knight of the sixteenth century to do in Texas in the
nineteenth century?”

He answered her mental question in his own charming way. He was so
happy, so radiantly happy, so persuasive, so compelling, that Antonia
granted him, without a word, the favor his eyes asked for. And the
lovers hardly heard the excuse she made; they understood nothing of it,
only that she would be reading in the myrtle walk for one hour, and, by
so doing, would protect them from intrusion.

One whole hour! Isabel had thought the promise a perfect magnificence of
opportunity{.??} But how swiftly it went. Luis had not told her the half
of his love and his hopes. He had been forced to speak of politics and
business, and every such word was just so many stolen from far sweeter
words--words that fell like music from his lips, and were repeated with
infinite power from his eyes. Low words, that had the pleading of a
thousand voices in them; words full of melody, thrilling with romance;
poetical, and yet real as the sunshine around them.

In lovers of a colder race, bound by conventional ties, and a dress
rigorously divested of every picturesque element, such wooing might have
appeared ridiculous; but in Don Luis, the most natural thing about
it was its extravagance. When he knelt at the feet of his beloved
and kissed her hands, the action was the unavoidable outcome of his
temperament. When he said to her, “Angel mio! you are the light of my
darkness, the perfume of all flowers that bloom for me, the love of my
loves, my life, my youth, my lyre, my star, had I a thousand souls with
which to love, I would give them all to you!” he believed every word he
uttered, and he uttered every word with the passion of a believer.

He stirred into life also in the heart of Isabel a love as living as
his own. In that hour she stepped outside all of her childhood’s
immaturities. She became a woman. She accepted with joyful tears a
woman’s lot of love and sorrow. She said to Antonia:

“Luis was in my heart before; now, I have put him in my soul. My soul
will never die. So I shall never forget him--never cease to love him.”

Rachela faithfully kept her agreement. For one hour she was asleep to
all her charge did, and Isabel was in her own room when the precious
sixty minutes were over. Happy? So happy that her soul seemed to have
pushed her body aside, as a thing not to be taken into account. She
sang like a bird for very gladsomeness. It was impossible for her to
be still, and as she went about her room with little dancing, balancing
movements of her hands and feet, Antonia knew that they were keeping
their happy rhythmic motion to the melody love sang in her heart.

And she rejoiced with her little sister, though she was not free from
a certain regret for her concession, for it is the after-reckoning with
conscience that is so disagreeably strict and uncomfortable. And yet,
why make an element of anger and suspicion between Isabel and her mother
when there appeared to be no cause to do so? Don Luis was going away. He
was in disgrace with his family--almost disinherited; the country was on
the point of war, and its fortunes might give him some opportunities no
one now foresaw. But if Isabel’s mother had once declared that she would
“never sanction the marriage,” Antonia knew that, however she might
afterwards regret her haste and prejudice, she would stand passionately
by her decision. Was it not better, then, to prevent words being said
which might cause sorrow and regret in the future?

But as regarded Isabel’s father, no such reason existed. The happiness
of his children was to him a more sacred thing than his own prejudices.
He liked Don Luis, and his friendship with his mother, the Senora
Alveda, was a long and tried one. The youth’s political partialities,
though bringing him at present into disgrace, were such as he himself
had largely helped to form. Antonia was sure that her father would
sympathize with Isabel, and excuse in her the lapse of duty which had
given his little girl so much happiness. Yes, it would be right to tell
him every thing, and she did not fear but Isabel would agree in her
decision.

At this moment Rachela entered. The Senora wished her daughters to
call upon the American manteau-maker for her, and the ride in the open
carriage to the Plaza would enable them to bow to their acquaintances,
and exhibit their last new dresses from New Orleans. Rachela was already
prepared for the excursion, and she was not long in attiring Isabel.

“To be sure, the siesta has made you look charming this afternoon,” she
said, looking steadily into the girl’s beaming, blushing face, “and this
rose silk is enchanting. Santa Maria, how I pity the officers who will
have the great fortune to see you this afternoon, and break their hearts
for the sight! But you must not look at them, mark! I shall tell the
Senora if you do. It is enough if they look at you. And the American way
of the Senorita Antonia, which is to bow and smile to every admirer,
it will but make more enchanting the becoming modesty of the high-born
Mexicaine.”

“Keep your tongue still, Rachela. Ah! if you strike me, I will go to
my father. He will not permit it. I am not a child to be struck and
scolded, and told when to open and shut my eyes. I shall do as my sister
does, and the Holy Mother herself will be satisfied with me!”

“Chito! Chito!! You wicked one! Oh, Maria Santissima, cast on this child
a look of compassion! The American last night has bewitched her! I said
that he looked like a Jew.”

“I am not wicked, Rachela; and gracias a Dios, there is no Inquisition
now to put the question!”

Isabel was in a great passion, or the awful word that had made lips
parch and blanch to utter it for generations would never have been
launched at the offending woman’s head. But its effect was magical.
Rachela put up her hands palm outwards, as if to shield herself from
a blow, and then without another word stooped down and tied the satin
sandals on Isabel’s restless feet. She was muttering prayers during the
whole action, for Isabel had been quick to perceive her advantage,
and was following it up by a defiant little monologue of rebellious
speeches.

In the midst of this scene, Antonia entered. She was dressed for the
carriage, and the carriage stood at the door waiting; but her face was
full of fear, and she said, hurriedly:

“Rachela, can you not make some excuse to my mother which will permit us
to remain at home? Hark! There is something wrong in the city.”

In a moment the three women were on the balcony, intently, anxiously
listening. Then they were aware of a strange confusion in the subtle,
amber atmosphere. It was as if they heard the noise of battle afar
off; and Rachela, without a word, glided away to the Senora. Isabel and
Antonia stood hand in hand, listening to the vague trouble and the echo
of harsh, grating voices, mingled with the blare of clarions, the roll
of drums, and the rattle of scattering rifle-shots. Yet the noises were
so blended together, so indistinct, so strangely expressive of both
laughter and defiance, that it was impossible to identify or describe
them.

Suddenly a horseman came at a rapid pace towards the house, and Antonia,
leaning over the balcony, saw him deliver a note to Rachela, and then
hurry away at the same reckless speed. The note was from the doctor to
his wife, and it did not tend to allay their anxiety. “Keep within the
house,” it said; “there are difficulties in the city. In an hour or two
I will be at home.”

But it was near midnight when he arrived, and Antonia saw that he was
a different man. He looked younger. His blue eyes shone with the
light behind them. On his face there was the impress of an invincible
determination. His very walk had lost its listless, gliding tread, and
his steps were firm, alert and rapid.

No one had been able to go to bed until he arrived, though Isabel slept
restlessly in her father’s chair, and the Senora lay upon the couch,
drowsing a little between her frequent attacks of weeping and angry
anticipation. For she was sure it was the Americans. “Anything was
possible with such a man as Sam Houston near the city.”

“Perhaps it is Santa Anna,” at length suggested Antonia. “He has been
making trouble ever since I can remember. He was born with a sword in
his hand, I think.”

“Ca! And every American with a rifle in his hand! Santa Anna is a
monster, but at least he fights for his own country. Texas is not the
country of the Americans.”

“But, indeed, they believe that Texas is their country”; and to these
words Doctor Worth entered.

“What is the matter? What is the matter, Roberto? I have been made sick
with these uncertainties. Why did you not come home at the Angelus?”

“I have had a good reason for my delay, Maria. About three o’clock I
received a message from the Senora Alveda, and I visited her. She is
in great trouble, and she had not been able to bear it with her usual
fortitude. She bad fainted.”

“Ah, the poor mother! She has a son who will break her heart.”

“She made no complaint of Luis. She is distracted about her country, and
as I came home I understood why. For she is a very shrewd woman, and she
perceives that Santa Anna is preparing trouble enough for it.”

“Well, then, what is it?”

“When I left her house, I noticed many Americans, as well as many
Mexicans, on the streets. They were standing together, too; and there
was something in their faces, and in the way their arms were carried,
which was very striking and portentous. I fancied they looked coldly
on me, and I was troubled by the circumstance. In the Plaza I saw the
military band approaching, accompanied by half a dozen officers and a
few soldiers. The noise stopped suddenly, and Captain Morello proclaimed
as a bando (edict) of the highest authority, an order for all Americans
to surrender their arms of every description to the officials and at the
places notified.”

“Very good!”

“Maria, nothing could be worse! Nothing could be more shameful and
disastrous. The Americans had evidently been expecting this useless
bombast, and ere the words were well uttered, they answered them with
a yell of defiance. I do not think more than one proclamation was
necessary, but Morello went from point to point in the city and the
Americans followed him. I can tell you this, Maria: all the millions
in Mexico can not take their rifles from the ten thousand Americans in
Texas, able to carry them.”

“We shall see! We shall see! But, Roberto, you at least will not
interfere in their quarrels. You have never done so hitherto.”

“No one has ever proposed to disarm me before, Maria. I tell you
frankly, I will not give up a single rifle, or revolver, or weapon of
any kind, that I possess. I would rather be slain with them. I have
never carried arms before, but I shall carry them now. I apologize to my
countrymen for not having them with me this afternoon. My dearest wife!
My good Maria! do not cry in that despairing way.”

“You will be killed, Roberto! You will be a rebel! You will be shot like
a dog, and then what will become of me and my daughters?”

“You have two sons, Maria. They will avenge their father, and protect
their mother and sisters.”

“I shall die of shame! I shall die of shame and sorrow!”

“Not of shame, Maria. If I permitted these men to deprive me of my arms,
you might well die of shame.”

“What is it? Only a gun, or a pistol, that you never use?”

“Great God, Maria! It is everything! It is honor! It is liberty! It is
respect to myself! It is loyalty to my country! It is fidelity to
my countrymen! It is true that for many years the garrison has fully
protected us, and I have not needed to use the arms in my house. But
thousands of husbands and fathers need them hourly, to procure food for
their children and wives, and to protect them from the savages. One
tie binds us. Their cause is my cause. Their country is my country, and
their God is my God. Children, am I right or wrong?”

They both stepped swiftly to his side. Isabel laid her cheek against
his, and answered him with a kiss. Antonia clasped his hand, stood close
to him, and said: “We are all sure that you are right, dear father. My
mother is weary and sick with anxiety, but she thinks so too. Mother
always thinks as you do, father. Dear mother, here is Rachela with a cup
of chocolate, and you will sleep and grow strong before morning.”

But the Senora, though she suffered her daughter’s caresses, did not
answer them, neither did she speak to her husband, though he opened the
door for her and stood waiting with a face full of anxious love for a
word or a smile from her. And the miserable wife, still more miserable
than her husband, noticed that Isabel did not follow her. Never before
had Isabel seemed to prefer any society to her mother’s, and the unhappy
Senora felt the defection, even amid her graver trouble.

But Isabel had seen something new in her father that night; something
that touched her awakening soul with admiration. She lingered with him
and Antonia, listening with vague comprehension to their conversation,
until Rachela called her angrily; and as she was not brave enough for a
second rebellion that night, she obediently answered her summons.

An hour afterwards, Antonia stepped cautiously within her room. She was
sleeping, and smiling in her sleep. Where was her loving, innocent soul
wandering? Between the myrtle hedges and under the fig-tree with her
lover? Oh, who can tell where the soul goes when sleep gives it some
release? Perhaps it is at night our angels need to watch us most
carefully. For the soul, in dreams, can visit evil and sorrowful places,
as well as happy and holy ones. But Isabel slept and smiled, and Antonia
whispered a prayer at her side ere she went to her own rest.

And the waning moon cast a pathetic beauty over the Eden-like land, till
dawn brought that mystical silence in which every new day is born. Then
Robert Worth rose from the chair in which he had been sitting so long,
remembering the past and forecasting the future. He walked to the
window, opened it, and looked towards the mountains. They had an
ethereal hue, a light without rays, a clearness almost polar in its
severity. But in some way their appearance infused into his soul
calmness and strength.

“Liberty has always been bought with life, and the glory of the greatest
nations handseled with the blood of their founders.” This was the
thought in his heart, as looking far off to the horizon, he asked
hopefully:

       “What then, O God, shall this good land produce
        That Thou art watering it so carefully?”




CHAPTER V. A FAMOUS BARBECUE.

        “So when fierce zeal a nation rends,
            And stern injustice rules the throne,
         Beneath the yoke meek virtue bends,
            And modest truth is heard to groan.
         But when fair Freedom’s star appears,
         Then hushed are sighs, and calmed are fears.
         And who, when nations long opprest,
            Decree to curb the oppressor’s pride,
         And patriot virtues fire the breast,
            Who shall the generous ardor chide?
         What shall withstand the great decree,
         When a brave nation will be free?

It is flesh and blood that makes husbands and wives, fathers and
children, and for the next few days these ties were sorely wounded in
Robert Worth’s house. The Senora was what Rachela called “difficult.” In
reality, she was angry and sullen. At such times she always went early
to mass, said many prayers, and still further irritated herself by
unnecessary fasting. But there are few homes which totally escape the
visitations of this ‘pious temper’ in some form or other. And no creed
modifies it; the strict Calvinist and strict Catholic are equally
disagreeable while under its influence.

Besides, the Senora, like the ill-tempered prophet, thought she “did
well to be angry.” She imagined herself deserted and betrayed in all
her tenderest feelings, her husband a rebel, her home made desolate, her
sons and daughters supporting their father’s imprudent views. She could
only see one alternative before her; she must choose between her country
and her religion, or her husband and children.

True, she had not yet heard from her sons, but she would listen to none
of Rachela’s hopes regarding them. Thomas had always said yes to all his
father’s opinions. How could she expect anything from John when he was
being carefully trained in the very principles which everywhere made the
Americans so irritating to the Mexican government.

Her husband and Antonia she would not see. Isabel she received in her
darkened room, with passionate weeping and many reproaches. The unhappy
husband had expected this trouble at the outset. It was one of those
domestic thorns which fester and hamper, but to which the very best
of men have to submit. He could only send pleasant and affectionate
messages by Rachela, knowing that Rachela would deliver them with her
own modifications of tone and manner.

“The Senor sends his great love to the Senora. Grace of Mary! If he
would do a little as the most wise and tender of spouses wishes him!
That would be for the good fortune of every one.

“Ah, Rachela, my heart is broken! Bring me my mantilla. I will go to
early mass, when one’s husband and children forsake them, who, then, is
possible but the Holy Mother?

“My Senora, you will take cold; the morning is chill; besides, I have to
say the streets will be full of those insolent Americans.”

“I shall be glad to take cold, perhaps even to die. And the Americans do
not offend women. Even the devil has his good points.”

“Holy Virgin! Offend women! They do not even think us worth looking
at. But then it is an intolerable offence to see them standing in our
streets, as if they had made the whole land.”

But this morning, early as it was, the streets were empty of Americans.
There had been hundreds of them there at the proclamation; there was not
one to be seen twelve hours afterwards. But at the principal rendezvous
of the city, and on the very walls of the Alamo, they had left this
characteristic notice:

     “To SANTA ANNA:

     “If you want our arms-take them.

     “TEN THOUSAND AMERICAN TEXANS.”

Robert Worth saw it with an irrepressible emotion of pride and
satisfaction. He had faithfully fulfilled his promise to his conscience,
and, with his rifle across his shoulder, and his revolvers and knife
in his belt, was taking the road to his office with a somewhat marked
deliberation. He was yet a remarkably handsome man; and what man is
there that a rifle does not give a kind of nobility to? With an up-head
carriage and the light of his soul in his face, he trod the narrow,
uneven street like a soldier full of enthusiasm at his own commission.

No one interfered with his solitary parade. He perceived, indeed,
a marked approval of it. The Zavalas, Navarros. Garcias, and other
prominent citizens, addressed him with but a slightly repressed
sympathy. They directed his attention with meaning looks to the
counter-proclamation of the Americans. They made him understand by the
pressure of their hands that they also were on the side of liberty.

As he did not hurry, he met several officers, but they wisely affected
not to see what they did not wish to see. For Doctor Worth was a person
to whom very wide latitude might be given. To both the military and
the civilians his skill was a necessity. The attitude he had taken was
privately discussed, but no one publicly acted or even commented upon
it. Perhaps he was a little disappointed at this. He had come to a point
when a frank avowal of his opinions would be a genuine satisfaction;
when, in fact, his long-repressed national feeling was imperious.

On the third morning, as he crossed the Plaza, some one called him. The
voice made his heart leap; his whole nature responded to it like the
strings of a harp to the sweep of a skilful hand. He turned quickly,
and saw two young men galloping towards him. The foremost figure was his
son--his beloved youngest son--whom he had just been thinking of as well
out of danger, safe and happy in the peaceful halls of Columbia. And lo!
here he was in the very home of the enemy; and he was glad of it.

“Why, Jack!” he cried; “Why, Jack, my boy! I never thought of you here.”
 He had his hand on the lad’s shoulder, and was gazing into his bright
face with tears and smiles and happy wonder.

“Father, I had to come. And there are plenty more coming. And here is
my other self--the best fellow that ever lived: Darius Grant. ‘Dare’
we call him, father, for there is not anything he won’t venture if he
thinks it worth the winning. And how is mi madre and Antonia, and Iza?
And isn’t it jolly to see you with a rifle?”

“Well, Dare; well, Jack; you are both welcome; never so welcome to Texas
as at this hour. Come home at once and, refresh yourselves.”

There was so much to tell that at first the conversation was in
fragments and exclamations, and the voices of the two young men, pitched
high and clear in their excitement, went far before them as if impatient
of their welcome. Antonia heard them first. She was on the balcony,
standing thoughtful and attent. It seemed to her as if in those days she
was always listening. Jack’s voice was the loudest, but she heard Dare’s
first. It vibrated in midair and fell upon her consciousness, clear and
sweet as a far-away bell.

“That is Dare’s voice--HERE.”

She leaned forward, her soul hearkened after the vibrations, and again
they called her. With swift steps she reached the open door. Rachela sat
in her chair within it.

“The Senorita had better remain within,” she said, sullenly; “the sun
grows hot.”

“Let me pass, Rachela, I am in a hurry.”

“To be sure, the Senorita will have her way--good or bad.”

Antonia heeded her not; she was hastening down the main avenue toward
the gateway. This avenue was hedged on each side with oleanders, and
they met in a light, waving arch above her head. At this season they
were one mass of pale pink blossoms and dark glossy leaves. The vivid
sunshine through them made a rosy light which tinged her face and her
white gown with an indescribable glow. If a mortal woman can ever look
like an angel, the fair, swiftly moving Antonia had at that moment the
angelic expression of joy and love; the angelic unconsciousness of rapid
and graceful movement; the angelic atmosphere that was in itself a dream
of paradise; rose-tinted, divinely sweet and warm.

Dare saw her coming, and suddenly ceased speaking{.??} He was in the
midst of a sentence, but he forgot what he was saying. He forgot where
he was. He knew nothing, felt nothing, saw nothing, heard nothing but
Antonia. And yet he did not fall at her feet, and kiss her hands and
whisper delightful extravagances; all of which things an Iberian lover
would have done, and felt and looked in the doing perfectly graceful and
natural.

Dare Grant only clasped both the pretty hands held out to him; only
said “Antonia! Antonia!” only looked at her with eyes full of a loving
question, which found its instant answer in her own. In that moment they
revealed to each other the length and breadth, the height and the depth
of their affection. They had not thought of disguising it; they made no
attempt to do so; and Robert Worth needed not the confession which, a
few hours later, Grant thought it right to make to him.

When they entered the house together, a happy, noisy group, Rachela had
left her chair and was going hurriedly upstairs to tell the Senora her
surmise; but Jack passed her with a bound, and was at his mother’s side
before the heavy old woman had comprehended his passing salutation.

“Madre! Mother, I am here!”

The Senora was on her couch in her darkened room. She had been at the
very earliest mass, had a headache, and had come home in a state of
rebellion against heaven and earth. But Jack was her idol, the one child
for whose presence she continually pined, the one human creature to
whose will and happiness she delighted to sacrifice her own. When she
heard his voice she rose quickly, crying out:

“A miracle! A miracle! Grace of God and Mary, a miracle! Only this
morning, my precious, my boy! I asked the Holy Mother to pity my
sorrows, and send you to me. I vow to Mary a new shrine. I vow to keep
it, and dress it for one whole year. I will give my opal ring to the
poor. Oh, Juan! Juan! Juan I am too blessed.”

Her words were broken into pieces by his kisses. He knelt at her knees,
and stroked her face, and patted her hands, and did all with such
natural fervor and grace, that anything else, or anything less, must
have seemed cold and unfilial.

“Come, my beautiful mother, and see my friend. I have told him so much
about you; and poor Dare has no mother. I have promised him that you
will be his mother also. Dare is so good--the finest fellow in all the
world; come down and see Dare, and let us have a real Mexican dinner,
madre. I have not tasted an olla since I left you.”

She could not resist him. She made Rachela lay out her prettiest dress,
and when Jack said “how beautiful your hair is, mother; no one has hair
like you!” she drew out the great shell pins, and let it fall like a
cloud around her, and with a glad pride gave Rachela the order to get
out her jewelled comb and gilded fan and finest mantilla. And oh! how
happy is that mother who has such pure and fervent admiration from her
son; and how happy is that son to whom his mother is ever beautiful!

Jack’s presence drove all the evil spirits out of the house. The windows
were thrown open; the sunshine came in. He was running after Isabel, he
was playing the mandolin; his voice, his laugh, his quick footstep, were
everywhere.

In spite of the trouble in the city, there was a real festival in
the house. The Senora came down in her sweetest temper and her finest
garments. She arranged Jack’s dinner herself, selected the dishes and
gave strict orders about their serving. She took Jack’s friend at once
into her favor, and Dare thought her wonderfully lovely and gracious. He
sat with her on the balcony, and talked of Jack, telling her how clever
he was, and how all his comrades loved him for his sunny temper and
affectionate heart.

It was a happy dinner, lengthened out with merry conversation. Every one
thought that a few hours might be given to family love and family joy.
It would be good to have the memory of them in the days that were fast
coming. So they sat long over the sweetmeats, and fresh figs, and
the pale wines of Xeres and Alicante. And they rose up with laughter,
looking into each others’ faces with eyes that seemed to bespeak love
and remembrance. And then they went from the table, and saw not Destiny
standing cold and pitiless behind them, marking two places for evermore
vacant.

There was not much siesta that day. The Senora, Isabel and Jack
sat together; the Senora dozed a little, but not enough to lose
consciousness of Jack’s presence and Jack’s voice. The father, happy,
and yet acutely anxious, went to and fro between his children and his
study. Antonia and Dare were in the myrtle walk or under the fig-tree.
This hour was the blossoming time of their lives. And it was not the
less sweet and tender because of the dark shadows on the edge of the
sunshine. Nor were they afraid to face the shadows, to inquire of them,
and thus to taste the deeper rapture of love when love is gemmed with
tears.

It was understood that the young men were going away in the morning very
early; so early that their adieus must be said with their good-nights.
It was at this hour that the Senora found courage to ask:

“My Juan, where do you go?

“To Gonzales, mi madre.”

“But why? Oh, Juan, do not desert your madre, and your country!

“Desert you, madre! I am your boy to my last breath! My country I love
with my whole soul. That is why I have come back to you and to her! She
is in trouble and her sons must stand by her.”

“Do not talk with two meanings. Oh, Juan! why do you go to Gonzales?”

“We have heard that Colonel Ugartchea is to be there soon, and to
take away the arms of the Americans. That is not to be endured. If you
yourself were a man, you would have been away ere this to help them, I
am sure.”

“ME!! The Blessed Virgin knows I would cut off my hands and feet first.
Juan, listen to me dear one! You are a Mexican.”

“My heart is Mexican, for it is yours. But I must stand with my father
and with my brother, and with my American compatriots. Are we slaves,
that we must give up our arms? No, but if we gave them up we should
deserve to be slaves.”

“God and the saints!” she answered, passionately. “What a trouble about
a few guns! One would think the Mexicans wanted the wives and children,
the homes and lands of the Americans. They cry out from one end of Texas
to the other.”

“They cry out in old England and in New England, in New York, in New
Orleans, and all down the Mississippi. And men are crying back to
them: ‘Stand to your rifles and we will come and help you!’ The idea of
disarming ten thousand Americans!” Jack laughed with scornful amusement
at the notion. “What a game it will be! Mother, you can’t tell how a
man gets to love his rifle. He that takes our purse takes trash; but our
rifles! By George Washington, that’s a different story!”

Juan, my darling, you are my last hope. Your brother was born with an
American heart. He has even become a heretic. Fray Ignatius says he went
into the Colorado and was what they call immersed; he that was baptized
with holy water by the thrice holy bishop of Durango. My beloved one, go
and see Fray Ignatius; late as it is, he will rise and counsel you.

“My heart, my conscience, my country, my father, my brother, Santa
Anna’s despotism, have already counselled me.”

“Speak no more. I see that you also are a rebel and a heretic. Mother of
sorrows, give me thy compassion!” Then, turning to Juan, she cried out:
“May God pardon me for having brought into this world such ingrates! Go
from me! You have broken my heart!”

He fell at her feet, and, in spite of her reluctance, took her hands--

“Sweetest mother, wait but a little while. You will see that we are
right. Do not be cross with Juan. I am going away. Kiss me, mother. Kiss
me, and give me your blessing.”

“No, I will not bless you. I will not kiss you. You want what is
impossible, what is wicked.”

“I want freedom.”

“And to get freedom you tread upon your mother’s heart. Let loose my
hands. I am weary to death of this everlasting talk of freedom. I think
indeed that the Americans know but two words: freedom and dollars. Ring
for Rachela. She, at least, is faithful to me.”

“Not till you kiss me, mother. Do not send me away unblessed and
unloved. That is to doom me to misfortune. Mi madre, I beg this favor
from you.” He had risen, but he still held her hands, and he was weeping
as innocent young men are not ashamed to weep.

If she had looked at him! Oh, if she had but once looked at his face,
she could not have resisted its beauty, its sorrow, its imploration! But
she would not look. She drew her hands angrily away from him. She turned
her back upon her suppliant son and imperiously summoned Rachela.

“Good-by, mi madre.”

“Good-by, mi madre!”

She would not turn to him, or answer him a word.

“Mi madre, here comes Rachela! Say ‘God bless you, Juan.’ It is my last
word, sweet mother!”

She neither moved nor spoke. The next moment Rachela entered, and the
wretched woman abandoned herself to her care with vehement sobs and
complainings.

Jack was inexpressibly sorrowful. He went into the garden, hoping in its
silence and solitude to find some relief. He loved his mother with his
strongest affection. Every one of her sobs wrung his heart. Was it right
to wound and disobey her for the sake of--freedom? Mother was a certain
good; freedom only a glorious promise. Mother was a living fact; freedom
an intangible idea.

Ah, but men have always fought more passionately for ideas than for
facts! Tyrants are safe while they touch only silver and gold; but when
they try to bind a man’s ideals--the freedom of his citizenship--the
purity of his faith--he will die to preserve them in their integrity.

Besides, freedom for every generation has but her hour. If that hour is
not seized, no other may come for the men who have suffered it to pass.
But mother would grow more loving as the days went by. And this was ever
the end of Jack’s reasoning; for no man knows how deep the roots of his
nature strike into his native land, until he sees her in the grasp of a
tyrant, and hears her crying to him for deliverance.

The struggle left the impress on his face. He passed a boundary in it.
Certain boyish feelings and graces would never again be possible to him.
He went into the house, weary, and longing for companionship that would
comfort or strengthen him. Only Isabel was in the parlor. She appeared
to be asleep among the sofa cushions, but she opened her eyes wide as he
took a chair beside her.

“I have been waiting to kiss you again, Juan; do you think this trouble
will last very long?”

“It will be over directly, Iza. Do not fret yourself about it, angel
mio. The Americans are great fighters, and their quarrel is just. Well,
then, it will be settled by the good God quickly.”

“Rachela says that Santa Anna has sent off a million of men to fight the
Americans. Some they will cut in pieces, and some are to be sent to the
mines to work in chains.”

“God is not dead of old age, Iza. Santa Anna is a miraculous tyrant. He
has committed every crime under heaven, but I think he will not cut the
Americans in pieces.”

“And if the Americans should even make him go back to Mexico!”

“I think that is very possible.”

“What then, Juan?”

“He would pay for some of his crimes here the rest he would settle for
in purgatory. And you, too, Iza, are you with the Americans?”

“Luis Alveda says they are right.”

“Oh-h! I see! So Luis is to be my brother too. Is that so, little dear?”

“Have you room in your heart for him? Or has this Dare Grant filled it?”

“If I had twenty sisters, I should have room for twenty brothers, if
they were like Dare and Luis. But, indeed, Luis had his place there
before I knew Dare.”

“And perhaps you may see him soon; he is with Senor Sam Houston. Senor
Houston was here not a week ago. Will you think of that? And the mother
and uncle of Luis are angry at him; he will be disinherited, and we
shall be very poor, I think. But there is always my father, who loves
Luis.”

“Luis will win his own inheritance. I think you will be very rich.”

“And, Juan, if you see Luis, say to him, ‘Iza thinks of you
continually.’”

At this moment Rachela angrily called her charge--

“Are you totally and forever wicked, disobedient one? Two hours I have
been kept waiting. Very well! The Sisters are the only duenna for you;
and back to the convent you shall go to-morrow. The Senora is of my
mind, also.”

“My father will not permit it. I will go to my father. And think of
this, Rachela: I am no longer to be treated like a baby.” But she kissed
Juan ‘farewell,’ and went away without further dispute.

The handsome room looked strangely lonely and desolate when the door had
closed behind her. Jack rose, and roughly shook himself, as if by that
means he hoped to throw off the oppression and melancholy that was
invading even his light heart. Hundreds of moths were dashing themselves
to death against the high glass shade that covered the blowing candles
from them. He stood and looked at their hopeless efforts to reach the
flame. He had an unpleasant thought; one of those thoughts which have
the force of a presentiment. He put it away with annoyance, muttering,
“It is time enough to meet misfortune when it comes.”

The sound of a footstep made him stand erect and face the door.

It was only a sleepy peon with a request that he would go to his
father’s study. A different mental atmosphere met him there. The doctor
was walking up and down the room, and Dare and Antonia sat together at
the open window.

“Your father wants to hear about our journey, Jack. Take my chair and
tell him what happened. Antonia and I will walk within hearing; a roof
makes me restless such a night as this”; for the waning moon had risen,
and the cool wind from the Gulf was shaking a thousand scents from the
trees and the flowering shrubs.

The change was made with the words, and the doctor sat down beside his
son. “I was asking, Jack, how you knew so much about Texan affairs, and
how you came so suddenly to take part in them?”

“Indeed, father, we could not escape knowing. The Texan fever was more
or less in every young man’s blood. One night Dare had a supper at his
rooms, and there were thirty of us present. A man called Faulkner--a
fine fellow from Nacogdoches--spoke to us. How do you think he spoke,
when his only brother, a lad of twenty, is working in a Mexican mine
loaded with chains?”

“For what?”

“He said one day that ‘the natural boundaries of the United States
are the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.’ He was sent to the mines for the
words. Faulkner’s only hope for him is in the independence of Texas.
He had us on fire in five minutes--all but Sandy McDonald, who loves to
argue, and therefore took the Mexican side.”

“What could he say for it?”

“He said it was a very unjustlike thing to make Mexico give her American
settlers in Texas two hundred and twenty-four millions of acres because
she thought a change of government best for her own interests.”

“The Americans settled in Texas under the solemn guarantee of the
constitution of eighteen twenty-four. How many of them would have built
homes under a tyrannical despotism like that Santa Anna is now forcing
upon them?” asked the doctor, warmly.

“McDonald said, ‘There is a deal of talk about freedom among you
Americans, and it just means nothing at all.’ You should have seen
Faulkner! He turned on him like a tornado. ‘How should you know anything
about freedom, McDonald?’ he cried. ‘You are in feudal darkness in the
Highlands of Scotland. You have only just emigrated into freedom. But
we Americans are born free! If you can not feel the difference between
a federal constitution and a military and religious despotism, there is
simply no use talking to you. How would you like to find yourself in a
country where suddenly trial by jury and the exercise of your religion
was denied you? Of course you could abandon the home you had built, and
the acres you had bought and put under cultivation, and thus make some
Mexican heir to your ten years’ labor. Perhaps a Scot, for conscience’
sake, would do this.’”

“And what answer made he? He said, ‘A Scot kens how to grip tight to
ten years’ labor as well as yoursel’, Faulkner; and neither man nor
de’il can come between him and his religion; but--’ ‘BUT,’ shouted
Faulkner; ‘there is no BUT! It is God and our right! God and our right,
against priestcraft and despotism!’”

“Then every one of us leaped to our feet, and we swore to follow
Faulkner to Texas at an hour’s notice; and Sandy said we were ‘a parcel
of fools’; and then, would you believe it, father, when our boat was
leaving the pier, amid the cheers and hurrahs of thousands, Sandy leaped
on the boat and joined us?”

“What did he say then?”

“He said, ‘I am a born fool to go with you, but I think there is a kind
o’ witchcraft in that word TEXAS. It has been stirring me up morning and
night like the voice o’ the charmer, and I be to follow it though I ken
well enough it isna leading me in the paths o’ peace and pleasantness!’”

“Did you find the same enthusiasm outside of New York?”

“All along the Ohio and Mississippi we gathered recruits; and at
Randolph, sixty miles above Memphis, we were joined by David Crockett.”

“Jack!”

“True, father! And then at every landing we took on men. For at every
landing Crockett spoke to the people; and, as we stopped very often, we
were cheered all the way down the river. The Mediterranean, though the
biggest boat on it, was soon crowded; but at Helena, Crockett and a
great number of the leading men of the expedition got off. And as Dare
and Crockett had become friends, I followed them.”

“Where did you go to?”

“We went ostensibly to a big barbecue at John Bowie’s plantation, which
is a few miles below Helena. Invitations to this barbecue had been sent
hundreds of miles throughout the surrounding country. We met parties
from the depths of the Arkansas wilderness and the furthest boundaries
of the Choctaw nation coming to it. There were raftsmen from the
Mississippi, from the White, and the St. Francis rivers. There were
planters from Lousiana and Tennessee. There were woodsmen from Kentucky.
There were envoys from New Orleans, Washington, and all the great
Eastern cities.”

“I had an invitation myself, Jack.”

“I wish you had accepted it. It was worth the journey. There never was
and there never will be such a barbecue again. Thousands were present.
The woods were full of sheds and temporary buildings, and platforms for
the speakers.”

“Who were the speakers?”

“Crockett, Hawkins, General Montgomery, Colonel Beauford, the three
brothers Cheatham, Doc. Bennet, and many others. When the woods were
illuminated at night with pine knots, you may imagine the scene and the
wild enthusiasm that followed their eloquence.”

“Doc. Bennet is a good partisan, and he is enormously rich.”

“And he has a personal reason for his hatred of Mexico. An insatiable
revenge possesses him. His wife and two children were barbarously
murdered by Mexicans. He appealed to those who could not go to the
fight to give money to aid it, and on the spot laid down ten thousand
dollars.”

“Good!”

“Nine other men, either present or there by proxy, instantly gave a like
sum, and thirty thousand in smaller sums was added to it. Every donation
was hailed with the wildest transports, and while the woods were ringing
with electrifying shouts, Hawkins rallied three hundred men round him
and went off at a swinging galop for the Brazos.”

“Oh, Jack! Jack!”

In another hour, the rest of the leaders had gathered their detachments,
and every man had turned his face to the Texan prairies. Crockett was
already far advanced on the way. Sam Houston was known to be kindling
the fire on the spot; “and I suppose you know, father,” said Jack,
sinking his voice to a whisper, “that we have still more powerful
backers.”

“General Gaines?”

“Well, he has a large body of United States troops at Nacogdoches. He
says they are to protect the people of Navasola from the Indians.”

“But Navasola is twenty-nine miles west of Nacogdoches.”

“Navasola is in Texas. Very well! If the United States feel it to be
their duty to protect the people of Navasola, it seems they already
consider Texas within their boundary.”

“You think the Indians a mere pretext?”

“Of course. Crockett has with him an autograph letter from President
Jackson, introducing him as ‘a God-chosen patriot.’ President Jackson
already sees Texas in the Union, and Gaines understands that if the
American-Texans should be repulsed by Santa Anna, and fall back upon
him, that he may then gather them under his standard and lead them
forward to victory--and the conquest of Texas. Father, you will see the
Stars and Stripes on the palaces of Mexico.”

“Do not talk too fast, Jack. And now, go lie down on my bed. In four
hours you must leave, if you want to reach Gonzales to-night!”

Then Dare was called, and the lovers knew that their hour of parting was
come. They said nothing of the fears in their hearts; and on Antonia’s
lifted face there was only the light of love and of hope.

“The fight will soon be over, darling, and then!”

“And then? We shall be so happy.”




CHAPTER VI. ROBERT WORTH IS DISARMED.


     “Strange sons of Mexico, and strange her fate;
      They fight for freedom who were never free;
      A kingless people for a nerveless state.”

     *   *   *   *   *

     “Not all the threats or favors of a crown,
      A Prince’s whisper, or a tyrant’s frown,
      Can awe the spirit or allure the mind
      Of him, who to strict Honor is inclined.
      Though all the pomp and pleasure that does wait
      On public places, and affairs of state;
      Though all the storms and tempests should arise,
      That Church magicians in their cells devise,
      And from their settled basis nations tear:
      He would, unmoved, the mighty ruin bear.
      Secure in innocence, contemn them all,
      And, decently arrayed, in honor fall.”

     *   *   *   *   *

     “Say, what is honor?  ‘Tis the finest sense
      Of justice which the human mind can frame.”


The keenest sufferings entailed by war are not on the battle-field,
nor in the hospital. They are in the household. There are the maimed
affections, the slain hopes, the broken ties of love. And before a shot
had been fired in the war of Texan independence, the battle had begun in
Robert Worth’s household.

The young men lay down to rest, but he sat watching the night away.
There was a melancholy sleepiness in it; the mockingbirds had ceased
singing; the chirping insects had become weary. Only the clock, with its
regular “tick, tick,” kept the watch with him.

When it was near dawn, he lifted a candle and went into the room where
Jack and Dare were sleeping. Dare did not move; Jack opened his eyes
wide, and smiled brightly at the intruder.

“Well, father?”

“It is time to get up, Jack. Tell Dare.”

In a few minutes both came to him. A bottle of wine, some preserved
bears’ paws, and biscuits were on the table. They ate standing, speaking
very little and almost in whispers; and then the doctor went with
them to the stable. He helped Jack to saddle his horse. He found a sad
pleasure in coming so close to him. Once their cheeks touched, and the
touch brought the tears to his eyes and sent he blood to his heart.

With his hand on the saddle, Jack paused and said, softly, “Father,
dear, tell mi madre my last look at the house, my last thought in
leaving it, was for her. She would not kiss me or bless me last night.
Ask her to kiss you for me,” and then the lad broke fairly down. The
moment had come in which love could find no utterance, and must act. He
flung his arm around his father’s neck and kissed him. And the father
wept also, and yet spoke brave words to both as he walked with them
to the gate and watched them ride into the thick mist lying upon the
prairie like a cloud. They were only darker spots in it. It swallowed
them up. They were lost to sight.

He thought no one had seen the boys leave but himself. But through the
lattices two sorrowful women also watched their departure. The Senora,
as wakeful as her husband, had heard the slight movements, the unusual
noises of that early hour, and had divined the cause of them. She looked
at Rachela. The woman had fallen into the dead sleep of exhaustion, and
she would not have to parry her objections and warnings. Unshod, and
in her night-dress, she slipped through the corridor to the back of the
house, and tightly clasping her rosary in her hands, she stood behind
the lattice and watched her boy away.

He turned in his saddle just before he passed the gate, and she saw his
young face lifted with an unconscious, anxious love, to the very lattice
at which she stood: In the dim light it had a strange pallor. The misty
air blurred and made all indistinct. It was like seeing her Jack in some
woful dream. If he had been dead, such a vision of him might have come
to her from the shadow land.

Usually her grief was noisy and imperative of sympathy. But this morning
she could not cry nor lament. She went softly back to her room and sat
down, with her crucifix before her aching eyes. Yet she could not
say her usual prayers. She could not remember anything but Jack’s
entreaty--“Kiss me, mi madre! Bless me, mi madre!” She could not see
anything but that last rapid turn in the saddle, and that piteous young
face, showing so weird and dreamlike through the gray mist of the early
dawn.

Antonia had watched with her. Dare, also, had turned, but there had
been something about Dare’s attitude far more cheery and hopeful. On the
previous night Antonia had put some sprays of rosemary in his hat band
“to bring good, and keep away evil on a journey”; and as he turned and
lifted his hat he put his lips to them. He had the belief that from some
point his Antonia was watching him. He conveyed to her, by the strength
of his love and his will, the assurance of all their hopes.

That day Doctor Worth did not go out. The little bravado of carrying
arms was impossible to him. It was not that his courage had failed, or
that he had lost a tittle of his convictions, but he was depressed
by the uncertainty of his position and duty, and he was, besides, the
thrall of that intangible anxiety which we call PRESENTIMENT.

Yet, however dreary life is, it must go on. The brave-hearted cannot
drop daily duty. On the second day the doctor went to his office again,
and Antonia arranged the meals and received company, and did her best
to bring the household into peaceful accord with the new elements
encroaching on it from all sides.

But the Senora was more “difficult” than even Rachela had ever seen her
before. She did not go to church, but Fray Ignatius spent a great deal
of time with her; and his influence was not any more conciliating than
that of early masses and much fasting.

He said to her, indeed: “My daughter, you have behaved with the
fortitude of a saint. It would have been more than a venial sin, if you
had kissed and blessed a rebel in the very act of his rebellion. The
Holy Mary will reward and comfort you.”

But the Senora was not sensible of the reward and comfort; and she did
feel most acutely the cruel wound she had given her mother love. Neither
prayers nor penance availed her. She wanted to see Jack. She wanted to
kiss him a hundred times, and bless him with every kiss. And it did not
help her to be told that these longings were the suggestions of the Evil
One, and not to be listened to.

The black-robed monk, gliding about his house with downcast eyes and
folded hands, had never seemed to Robert Worth so objectionable. He
knew that he kept the breach open between himself and his wife--that
he thought it a point of religious duty to do so. He knew that he was
gradually isolating the wretched woman from her husband and children,
and that the continual repetition of prayers and penances did not give
her any adequate comfort for the wrong she was doing her affections.

The city was also in a condition of the greatest excitement. The
soldiers in the Alamo were under arms. Their officers had evidently
received important advices from Mexico. General Cos, the brother-in-law
of Santa Anna, was now in command, and it was said immense
reinforcements were hourly looked for. The drifting American population
had entirely vanished, but its palpable absence inspired the most
thoughtful of the people with fear instead of security.

Nor were the military by any means sure of the loyalty of the city. It
was well known that a large proportion of the best citizens hated the
despotism of Santa Anna; and that if the Americans attacked San
Antonio, they would receive active sympathy. Party feeling was no
longer controllable. Men suspected each other. Duels were of constant
occurrence, and families were torn to pieces; for the monks supported
Santa Anna with all their influence, and there were few women who dared
to disobey them.

Into the midst of this turbulent, touchy community, there fell one
morning a word or two which set it on fire. Doctor Worth was talking on
the Plaza with Senor Lopez Navarro. A Mexican soldier, with his yellow
cloak streaming out behind him, galloped madly towards the Alamo and
left the news there. It spread like wildfire. “There had been a fight at
Gonzales, and the Americans had kept their arms. They had also put the
Mexicans to flight.”

“And more,” added a young Mexican coming up to the group of which Robert
Worth was one, “Stephen Austin has escaped, and he arrived at Gonzales
at the very moment of victory. And more yet: Americans are pouring into
Gonzales from every quarter.”

An officer tapped Doctor Worth on the shoulder. “Senor Doctor, your
arms. General Cos hopes, in the present extremity, you will set an
example of obedience.”

“I will not give up my arms. In the present extremity my arms are the
greatest need I have.”

“Then Senor,--it is a great affliction to me--I must arrest you.”

He was led away, amid the audible murmurs of the men who filled the
streets. There needed but some one to have said the word, and they would
have taken him forcibly from the military. A great crowd followed him to
the gates of the Alamo. For there was scarcely a family in San Antonio
of which this good doctor was not an adopted member. The arrest of their
favorite confessor would hardly have enraged them more.

Fray Ignatius brought the news to the Senora. Even he was affected by
it. Never before had Antonia seen him walk except with thoughtful and
deliberate steps. She wondered at his appearance; at its suppressed
hurry; at a something in it which struck her as suppressed satisfaction.

And the priest was in his heart satisfied; though he was consciously
telling himself that “he was sorry for the Senora, and that he would
have been glad if the sins of her husband could have been set against
the works of supererogation which the saints of his own convent had
amassed.”

“But he is an infidel; he believes not in the saints,” he muttered;
“then how could they avail him!”

Antonia met him at the door. He said an Ave Maria as he crossed the
threshold, and gave her his hand to kiss. She looked wonderingly in his
face, for unless it was a special visit, he never called so near the
Angelus. Still, it is difficult to throw off a habit of obedience formed
in early youth; and she did not feel as if she could break through the
chill atmosphere of the man and ask: “For what reason have you come,
father?”

A long, shrill shriek from the Senora was the first answer to the
fearful question in her heart. In a few moments she was at her mother’s
door. Rachela knelt outside it, telling her rosary. She stolidly
kept her place, and a certain instinct for a moment prevented Antonia
interrupting her. But the passionate words of her mother, blending with
the low, measured tones of the priest, were something far more positive.

“Let me pass you, Rachela. What is the matter with my mother?”

The woman was absorbed in her supplications, and Antonia opened the
door. Isabel followed her. They found themselves in the the{sic}
presence of an angry sorrow that appalled them. The Senora had torn her
lace mantilla into shreds, and they were scattered over the room as she
had flung them from her hands in her frantic walk about it. The large
shell comb that confined her hair was trodden to pieces, and its long
coils had fallen about her face and shoulders. Her bracelets, her chain
of gold, her brooch and rings were scattered on the floor, and she was
standing in the centre of it, like an enraged creature; tearing
her handkerchief into strips, as an emphasis to her passionate
denunciations.

“It serves him right! JESUS! MARIA! JOSEPH! It serves him right! He must
carry arms! HE, TOO! when it was forbidden! I am glad he is arrested!
Oh, Roberto! Roberto!”

“Patience, my daughter! This is the hand of God. What can you do but
submit?”

“What is it, mi madre?” and Isabel put her arms around her mother with
the words mi madre. “Tell Isabel your sorrow.”

“Your father is arrested--taken to the Alamo--he will be sent to the
mines. I told him so! I told him so! He would not listen to me! How
wicked he has been!”

“What has my father done, Fray Ignatius? Why have they arrested him?”

The priest turned to Antonia with a cold face. He did not like her. He
felt that she did not believe in him.

“Senorita, he has committed a treason. A good citizen obeys the law;
Senor Worth has defied it.”

“Pardon, father, I cannot believe it.”

“A great forbearance has been shown him, but the end of mercy comes.
As he persisted in wearing arms, he has been taken to the Alamo and
disarmed.”

“It is a great shame! An infamous shame and wrong!” cried Antonia. “What
right has any one to take my father’s arms? No more than they have to
take his purse or his coat.”

“General Santa Anna--”

“General Santa Anna is a tyrant and a thief. I care not who says
different.”

“Antonia! Shameless one!”

“Mother, do not strike me.” Then she took her mother’s hands in her own,
and led her to a couch, caressing her as she spoke--

“Don’t believe any one--ANY ONE, mother, who says wrong of my father.
You know that he is the best of men. Rachela! Come here instantly. The
rosary is not the thing, now. You ought to be attending to the Senora.
Get her some valerian and some coffee, and come and remove her clothing.
Fray Ignatius, we will beg you to leave us to-night to ourselves.”

“Your mother’s sin, in marrying a heretic, has now found her out. It is
my duty to make her see her fault.”

“My mother had a dispensation from one greater than you.”

“Oh, father, pray for me! I accuse myself! I accuse myself! Oh, wretched
woman! Oh, cruel husband!”

“Mother, you have been a very happy woman. You have had the best husband
in the world. Do not reproach my father for the sins of others. Do not
desert him when he is in the power of a human tiger. My God, mother! let
us think of something to be done for his help! I will see the Navarros,
the Garcias, Judge Valdez; I will go to the Plaza and call on the
thousands he has cured and helped to set him free.”

“You will make of yourself something not to be spoken of. This is the
judgment of God, my daughter.”

“It is the judgment of a wicked man, Fray Ignatius. My mother is not now
able to listen to you. Isabel, come here and comfort her.” Isabel put
her cheek to her mother’s; she murmured caressing words; she kissed her
face, and coiled up her straggling hair, and with childlike trust amid
all, solicited Holy Mary to console them.

Fray Ignatius watched her with a cold scrutiny. He was saying to
himself, “It is the fruit of sin. I warned the Senora, when she married
this heretic, that trouble would come of it. Very well, it has come.”
 Then like a flash a new thought invaded his mind--If the Senor Doctor
disappeared forever, why not induce the Senora and her daughters to
go into a religious house? There was a great deal of money. The church
could use it well.

Antonia did not understand the thought, but she understood its animus,
and again she requested his withdrawal. This time she went close to him,
and bravely looked straight into his eyes. Their scornful gleam sent
a chill to her heart like that of cold steel. At that moment she
understood that she had turned a passive enemy into an active one.

He went, however, without further parley, stopping only to warn the
Senora against the sin “of standing with the enemies of God and the
Holy Church,” and to order Isabel to recite for her mother’s pardon and
comfort a certain number of aves and paternosters. Antonia went with
him to the door, and ere he left he blessed her, and said: “The Senorita
will examine her soul and see her sin. Then the ever merciful Church
will hear her confession, and give her the satisfying penance.”

Antonia bowed in response. When people are in great domestic sorrow,
self-examination is a superfluous advice. She listened a moment to
his departing footsteps, shivering as she stood in the darkness, for a
norther had sprung up, and the cold was severe. She only glanced into
the pleasant parlor where the table was laid for dinner, and a great
fire of cedar logs was throwing red, dancing lights over the white linen
and the shining silver and glass. The chairs were placed around
the table; her father’s at the head. It had a forsaken air that was
unendurable.

The dinner hour was now long past. It would be folly to attempt the
meal. How could she and Isabel sit down alone and eat, and her father in
prison, and her mother frantic with a loss which she was warned it was
sinful to mourn over. Antonia had a soul made for extremities and not
afraid to face them, but invisible hands controlled her. What could
a woman do, whom society had forbidden to do anything, but endure the
pangs of patience?

The Senora could offer no suggestions. She was not indeed in a mood to
think of her resources. A spiritual dread was upon her. And with this
mingled an intense sense of personal wrong from her husband. “Had she
not begged him to be passive? And he had put an old rifle before her
and her daughters! It was all that Senor Houston’s doing. She had an
assurance of that.” She invoked a thousand maledictions on him. She
recalled, with passionate reproaches, Jack’s infidelity to her and
his God and his country. Her anger passed from one subject to another
constantly, finding in all, even in the lukewarmness of Antonia and
Isabel, and in their affection for lovers, who were also rebels, an
accumulating reason for a stupendous reproach against herself, her
husband, her children, and her unhappy fate. Her whole nature was in
revolt--in that complete mental and moral anarchy from which springs
tragedy and murder.

Isabel wept so violently that she angered still further the tearless
suffering of her mother. “God and the saints!” she cried. “What are you
weeping for? Will tears do any good? Do I weep? God has forbidden me
to weep for the wicked. Yet how I suffer! Mary, mother of sorrows, pity
me!”

She sent Isabel away. Her sobs were not to be borne. And very soon
she felt Antonia’s white face and silent companionship to be just as
unendurable. She would be alone. Not even Rachela would she have near
her. She put out all the lights but the taper above a large crucifix,
and at its foot she sat down in tearless abandon, alone with her
reproaches and her remorse.

Antonia watched with her mother, though shut out from her presence.
She feared for a state of mind so barren of affection, so unsoftened
by tears. Besides, it was the climax of a condition which had continued
ever since she had sent her boy away without a word of love. In the
dim corridor outside she sat still, listening for any noise or movement
which might demand help or sympathy. It was not nine o’clock; but the
time lengthened itself out beyond endurance. Even yet she had hope of
some word from her father. Surely, they would let him send some word to
them!

She heard the murmur of voices downstairs, and she thought angrily of
Rachela, and Molly, and Manuel, “making a little confidence together”
 over their trouble, and spicing their evening gossip with the strange
thing that had happened to the Senor Doctor. She knew that Rachela and
Manuel would call him heretic and Americano, and, by authority of these
two words, accuse him of every crime.

Thinking with a swelling heart of these things, she heard the door open,
and a step slowly and heavily ascend the stairs. Ere she had time to
wonder at it, her father came in sight. There was a shocking change in
his air and appearance, but as he was evidently going to her mother’s
room, she shrank back and sat motionless so as not to attract his
attention.

Then she went to the parlor, and had the fire renewed and food put upon
the table. She was sure that he would need it, and she believed he would
be glad to talk over with her the events of the afternoon.

The Senora was still sitting at the foot of the crucifix when her
husband opened the door. She had not been able to pray; ave and
paternoster alike had failed her. Her rebellious grief filled every
corner of her heart. She understood that some one had entered the room,
and she thought of Rachela; but she found a kind of comfort in the dull
stupor of grief she was indulging, and she would not break its spell by
lifting her head.

“Maria.”

She rose up quickly and stood gazing at him.

She did not shriek or exclaim; her surprise controlled her. And also her
terror; for his face was white as death, and had an expression of angry
despair that terrified her.

“Roberto! Roberto! Mi Roberto! How you have tortured me! I have nearly
died! Fray Ignatius said you had been sent to prison.”

She spoke as calmly as a frightened child; sad and hesitating. If he had
taken her in his arms she would have sobbed her grief away there.

But Robert Worth was at that hour possessed by two master passions,
tyrannical and insatiable--they would take notice of nothing that did
not minister to them.

“Maria, they have taken my arms from me. Cowards! Cowards! Miserable
cowards! I refused to give them up! They held my hands and robbed
me--robbed me of my manhood and honor! I begged them to shoot me ere
they did it, and they spoke courteously and regretted this, and hoped
that, till I felt that it would be a joy to strangle them.”

“Roberto! Mi Roberto! You have me!”

“I want my rifle and all it represents. I want myself back again. Maria,
Maria, until then, I am not worthy to be any good woman’s husband!”

“Roberto, dearest! It is not your fault.”

“It is my fault. I have waited too long. My sons showed me my duty--my
soul urged me to do it. I deserve the shame, but I will wipe it out with
crimson blood.”

The Senora stood speechless, wringing her hands. Her own passion was
puny beside the sternness, the reality, and the intensity of the quiet
rage before her. She was completely mastered by it. She forgot all but
the evident agony she could neither mistake nor console.

“I have come to say ‘farewell,’ Maria. We have been very happy
together--Maria--our children--dearest--”

“Oh, Roberto! My husband! My soul! My life! Leave me not.”

“I am going for my arms. I will take them a hundredfold from those who
have robbed me. I swear I will!”

“You do not love me. What are these Americans to you? I am your wife.
Your Maria--”

“These Americans are my brothers--my sons. My mother is an American
woman.”

“And I?”

“You are my wife--my dear wife! I love you--God Almighty knows how well
I love you; but we must part now, at least for a short time. Maria, my
dear one, I must go.”

“Go? Where to?”

“I am going to join General Houston.”

“I thought so. I knew it. The accursed one! Oh that I had him here
again! I would bury my stiletto in his heart! Over the white hilt
I would bury it! I would wash my hands in his blood, and think them
blessed ever afterwards! Stay till daylight, Roberto. I have so much to
say, dearest.”

“I cannot. I have stayed too long. And now I must ride without a gun
or knife to protect me. Any Indian that I meet can scalp me. Do you
understand now what disarming means, Maria? If I had gone with my boy,
with my brave Jack, I could at least have sold my life to its last
drop.”

“In the morning, Roberto, Lopez Navarro will get you a gun. Oh, if you
must go, do not go unarmed! There are ten thousand Comanche between here
and the Brazos.”

“How could I look Lopez Navarro in the face? Or any other man? No, no!
I must win back my arms, before I can walk the streets of San Antonio
again.”

He took her in his arms, he kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her lips,
murmuring tender little Spanish words that meant, oh, so much, to the
wretched woman!--words she had taught him with kisses--words he never
used but to her ears only.

She clung to his neck, to his hands, to his feet; she made his farewell
an unspeakable agony. At last he laid her upon her couch, sobbing and
shrieking like a child in an extremity of physical anguish. But he did
not blame her. Her impetuosities, her unreasonable extravagances, were
a part of her nature, her race, and her character. He did not expect a
weak, excitable woman to become suddenly a creature of flame and steel.

But it was a wonderful rest to his exhausted body and soul to turn from
her to Antonia. She led him quietly to his chair by the parlor fire.
She gave him food and wine. She listened patiently, but with a living
sympathy, to his wrong. She endorsed, with a clasp of his hand and a
smile, his purpose. And she said, almost cheerfully:

“You have not given up all your arms, father. When I first heard of the
edict, I hid in my own room the rifle, the powder and the shot, which
were in your study. Paola has knives in the stable; plenty of them. Get
one from him.”

Good news is a very relative thing. This information made the doctor
feel as if all were now easy and possible. The words he said to her,
Antonia never forgot. They sang in her heart like music, and led her on
through many a difficult path. The conversation then turned upon money
matters, and Antonia received the key of his study, and full directions
as to the gold and papers secreted there.

Then Isabel was awakened, and the rifle brought down; and Paola saddled
the fleetest horse in the stable, and after one solemn five minutes with
his daughter, Robert Worth rode away into the midnight darkness, and
into a chaos of public events of which no man living could forecast the
outcome.

Rode away from wife and children and home; leaving behind him the love
and labor of his lifetime--

        “The thousand sweet, still joys of such
         As hand in hand face earthly life.”

For what? For justice, for freedom of thought and action, for the rights
of his manhood, for the brotherhood of race and religion and country.
Antonia and Isabel stood hand in hand at the same lattice from which the
Senora had watched her son away, and in a dim, uncertain manner these
thoughts connected themselves in each mind with the same mournful
inquiry--Is it worth while?

As the beat of the horse’s hoofs died away, they turned. The night was
cold but clear, and the sky appeared so high that their eyes throbbed
as they gazed upward at the grand arch, sprinkled with suns and worlds.
Suddenly into the tranquil spaces there was flung a sound of joy and
revelry; and the girls stepped to a lattice at the end of the corridor
and looked out.

The residencia of Don Salvo Valasco was clearly visible from this site.
They saw that it was illuminated throughout. Lovely women, shining with
jewels, and soldiers in scarlet and gold, were chatting through the
graceful movements of the danza, or executing the more brilliant Jota
Aragonesa. The misty beauty of white lace mantillas, the glitter and
color of fans and festival dresses, made a moving picture of great
beauty.

And as they watched it there was a cessation of the dance, followed by
the rapid sweep of a powerful hand over the strings of a guitar. Then a
group of officers stepped together, and a great wave of melodious song,
solemn and triumphant, thrilled the night. It was the national hymn.
Antonia and Isabel knew it. Every word beat upon their hearts. The power
of association, the charm of a stately, fervent melody was upon them.

“It is Senor Higadillos who leads,” whispered Isabel, as a resonant
voice, powerful and sweet, cried--

     “O list to the summons!  The blood of our sires,
      Boils high in our veins, and to vengeance inspires!
      Who bows to the yoke? who bends to the blow?”

and, without a moment’s hesitation, the answer came in a chorus of
enthusiastic cadences--

     “No hero will bend, no Mexican bow;
      Our country in tears sends her sons to the fight,
      To conquer, or die, for our land and our right.”


“You see, the Mexicans think THEY are in the right--THEY are patriots
also, Antonia.”

The sorrowful girl spoke like a puzzled child, fretfully and
uncertainly, and Antonia led her silently away. What could she answer?
And when she remembered the dear fugitive, riding alone through the
midnight--riding now for life and liberty--she could not help the
uprising again of that cold benumbing question--“Is it worth while?”




CHAPTER VII. A MEETING AT MIDNIGHT.

     “All faiths are to their own believers just,
      For none believe because they will, but must;
      The priest continues what the nurse began,
      And thus the child imposes on the man.”
                                  --DRYDEN.

     “--if he be called upon to face
      Some awful moment, to which heaven has joined
      Great issues good or bad for humankind,
      Is happy as a lover; and attired
      With sudden brightness, like a man inspired;
      And through the heat of conflict keeps the law
      In calmness made; and sees what he foresaw,
      Or, if an unexpected call succeed,
      Come when it will, is equal to the need.”
                                  --WORDSWORTH.

     “Ah! love, let us be true
      To one another, through the world which seems
      To lie before us like a land of dreams!”

The gathering at Don Valasco’s was constantly repeated in various
degrees of splendor among the loyal Mexicans of the city. They were as
fully convinced of the justice of their cause as the Americans were.
“They had graciously permitted Americans to make homes in their country;
now they wanted not only to build heretic churches and sell heretic
bibles, but also to govern Texas after their own fashion.” From a
Mexican point of view the American settlers were a godless, atheistical,
quarrelsome set of ingrates. For eaten bread is soon forgotten, and
Mexicans disliked to remember that their own independence had been
won by the aid of the very men they were now trying to force into
subjection.

The two parties were already in array in every house in the city. The
Senora at variance with her daughters, their Irish cook quarrelling
with their Mexican servants, only represented a state of things nearly
universal. And after the failure of the Mexicans at Gonzales to disarm
the Americans, the animosity constantly increased.

In every church, the priests--more bitter, fierce and revengeful than
either the civil or military power--urged on the people an exterminating
war. A black flag waved from the Missions, and fired every heart with
an unrelenting vengeance and hatred. To slay a heretic was a free pass
through the dolorous pains of purgatory. For the priesthood foresaw
that the triumph of the American element meant the triumph of freedom
of conscience, and the abolition of their own despotism. To them the
struggle was one involving all the privileges of their order; and they
urged on the fight with passionate denunciations of the foe, and with
magnificent promises of spiritual favors and blessings. In the fortress,
the plaza, the houses, the churches, the streets, their fiery words kept
society in a ferment.

But through all this turmoil the small duties of life went on. Soldiers
were parading the streets, and keeping watch on the flat roofs of the
houses; men were solemly{sic} swearing allegiance to Santa Anna, or
flying by night to the camp of the Americans; life and death were held
at a pin’s fee; but eating and dressing, dancing and flirting were
pursued with an eagerness typical of pleasure caught in the passing.

And every hour these elements gathered intensity. The always restless
populace of San Antonio was at a feverish point of impatience. They
wanted the war at their own doors. They wanted the quarrel fought out on
their own streets. Business took a secondary place. Men fingered weapons
and dreamed of blood, until the temper of the town was as boisterous and
vehement as the temper of the amphitheatre when impatiently waiting for
the bulls and the matadores.

Nor was it possible for Antonia to lock the door upon this pervading
spirit. After Doctor Worth’s flight, it became necessary for her to
assume control over the household. She had promised him to do so,
and she was resolved, in spite of all opposition, to follow out his
instructions. But it was by no means an easy task.

Fray Ignatius had both the Senora and Rachela completely under his
subjection. Molly, the Irish cook, was already dissatisfied. The doctor
had saved her life and given her a good home and generous wages,
and while the doctor was happy and prosperous Molly was accordingly
grateful. But a few words from the priest set affairs in a far
pleasanter light to her. She was a true Catholic; the saints sent the
heretic doctor to help. It was therefore the saints to whom gratitude
was due. Had she not earned her good wage? And would not Don Angel
Sandoval give her a still larger sum? Or even the Brothers at the
Mission of San Jose? Molly listened to these words with a complacent
pleasure. She reflected that it would be much more agreeable to her to
be where she could entirely forget that she had ever been hungry and
friendless, and lying at death’s door.

Antonia knew also that Rachela was at heart unfaithful, and soon the
conviction was forced on her that servants are never faithful beyond the
line of their own interest--that it is, indeed, against certain primary
laws of nature to expect it. Certainly, it was impossible to doubt
that there was in all their dependents a kind of satisfaction in their
misfortunes.

The doctor had done them favors--how unpleasant was their memory!
The Senora had offended them by the splendor of her dress, and her
complacent air of happiness. Antonia’s American ways and her habit of
sitting for hours with a book in her hand were a great irritation.

“She wishes to be thought wiser than other women--as wise as even a holy
priest--SHE! that never goes to mass, and is nearly a heretic,” said the
house steward; “and as for the Senorita Isabel, a little trouble will be
good for her! Holy Mary! the way she has been pampered and petted! It
is an absurdity. ‘Little dear,’ and ‘angel,’ are the hardest words she
hears. Si! if God did not mercifully abate a little the rich they would
grow to be ‘almightys.’”

This was the tone of the conversation of the servants of the household.
It was not an unnatural tone, but it was a very unhappy one. People
cannot escape from the mood of mind they habitually indulge, and from
the animus of the words they habitually use; and Antonia felt and
understood the antagonistic atmosphere. For the things which we know
best of all are precisely the things which no one has ever told us.

The Senora, in a plain black serge gown, and black rebozo over her head,
spent her time in prayers and penances. The care of her household had
always been delegated to her steward, and to Rachela; while the duties
that more especially belonged to her, had been fulfilled by her husband
and by Antonia. In many respects she was but a grown-up baby. And so, in
this great extremity, the only duty which pressed upon her was the idea
of supplicating the saints to take charge of her unhappy affairs.

And Fray Ignatius was daily more hard with her. Antonia even suspected
from his growing intolerance and bitterness, that the Americans
were gaining unexpected advantages. But she knew nothing of what was
happening. She could hear from afar off the marching and movements of
soldiers; the blare of military music; the faint echoes of hurrahing
multitudes; but there was no one to give her any certain information.
Still, she guessed something from the anger of the priest and the
reticence of the Mexican servants. If good fortune had been with
Santa Anna, she was sure she would have heard of “The glorious! The
invincible! The magnificent Presidente de la Republica Mexicana! The
Napoleon of the West!”

It was not permitted her to go into the city. A proposal to do so had
been met with a storm of angry amazement. And steam and electricity
had not then annihilated distance and abolished suspense. She could but
wonder and hope, and try to read the truth from a covert inspection of
the face and words of Fray Ignatius.

Between this monk and herself the breach was hourly widening. With angry
pain she saw her mother tortured between the fact that she loved her
husband, and the horrible doubt that to love him was a mortal sin. She
understood the underlying motive which prompted the priest to urge upon
the Senora the removal of herself and her daughters to the convent.
His offer to take charge of the Worth residencia and estate was in her
conviction a proposal to rob them of all rights in it. She felt certain
that whatever the Church once grasped in its iron hand, it would ever
retain. And both to Isabel and herself the thought of a convent was now
horrible. “They will force me to be a nun,” said Isabel; “and then, what
will Luis do? And they will never tell me anything about my father and
my brothers. I should never hear of them. I should never see them any
more; unless the good God was so kind as to let me meet them in his
heaven.”

And Antonia had still darker and more fearful thoughts. She had not
forgotten the stories whispered to her childhood, of dreadful fates
reserved for contumacious and disobedient women. Whenever Fray
Ignatius looked at her she felt as if she were within the shadow of the
Inquisition.

Never had days passed so wearily and anxiously. Never had nights been so
terrible. The sisters did not dare to talk much together; they doubted
Rachela; they were sure their words were listened to and repeated.
They were not permitted to be alone with the Senora. Fray Ignatius had
particularly warned Rachela to prevent this. He was gradually bringing
the unhappy woman into what he called “a heavenly mind”--the influence
of her daughters, he was sure, would be that of worldly affections and
sinful liberty. And Rachela obeyed the confessor so faithfully, that the
Senora was almost in a state of solitary confinement. Every day her will
was growing weaker, her pathetic obedience more childlike and absolute.

But at midnight, when every one was asleep, Antonia stepped softly into
her sister’s room and talked to her. They sat in Isabel’s bed clasping
each other’s hand in the dark, and speaking in whispers. Then Antonia
warned and strengthened Isabel. She told her all her fears. She
persuaded her to control her wilfulness, to be obedient, and to assume
the childlike thoughtlessness which best satisfied Fray Ignatius. “He
told you to-day to be happy, that he would think for you. My darling,
let him believe that is the thing you want,” said Antonia. “I assure you
we shall be the safer for it.”

“He said to me yesterday, when I asked him about the war, ‘Do not
inquire, child, into things you do not understand. That is to be
irreligious,’ and then he made the cross on his breast, as if I had
put a bad thought into his heart. We are afraid all day, and we sit
whispering all night about our fears; that is the state we are in. The
Lord sends us nothing but misfortunes, Antonia.”

“My darling, tell the Lord your sorrow, then, but do not repine to
Rachela or Fray Ignatius. That is to complain to the merciless of the
All-Merciful.”

“Do you think I am wicked, Antonia? What excuse could I offer to His
Divine Majesty, if I spoke evil to him of Rachela and Fray Ignatius?”

“Neither of them are our friends; do you think so?”

“Fray Ignatius looks like a goblin; he gives me a shiver when he looks
at me; and as for Rachela--I already hate her!”

“Do not trust her. You need not hate her, Isabel.”

“Antonia, I know that I shall eternally hate her; for I am sure that our
angels are at variance.”

In conversations like these the anxious girls passed the long, and
often very cold, nights. The days were still worse, for as November went
slowly away the circumstances which surrounded their lives appeared to
constantly gather a more decided and a bitterer tone. December, that
had always been such a month of happiness, bright with Christmas
expectations and Christmas joys, came in with a terribly severe, wet
norther. The great log fires only warmed the atmosphere immediately
surrounding them, and Isabel and Antonia sat gloomily within it all day.
It seemed to Antonia as if her heart had come to the very end of hope;
and that something must happen.

The rain lashed the earth; the wind roared around the house, and filled
it with unusual noises. The cold was a torture that few found themselves
able to endure. But it brought a compensation. Fray Ignatius did not
leave the Mission comforts; and Rachela could not bear to go prowling
about the corridors and passages. She established herself in the
Senora’s room, and remained there. And very early in the evening she
said “she had an outrageous headache,” and went to her room.

Then Antonia and Isabel sat awhile by their mother’s bed. They talked in
whispers of their father and brothers, and when the Senora cried, they
kissed her sobs into silence and wiped her tears away. In that hour, if
Fray Ignatius had known it, they undid, in a great measure, the work to
which he had given more than a month of patient and deeply-reflective
labor. For with the girls, there was the wondrous charm of love and
nature; but with the priest, only a splendid ideal of a Church universal
that was to swallow up all the claims of love and all the ties of
nature.

It was nearly nine o’clock when Antonia and Isabel returned to the
parlor fire. Their hearts were full of sorrow for their mother, and
of fears for their own future. For this confidence had shown them how
firmly the refuge of the convent had been planted in the anxious ideas
of the Senora. Fortunately, the cold had driven the servants either to
the kitchen fire or to their beds, and they could talk over the subject
without fear of interference.

“Are you sleepy, queridita?”--(little dear).

“I think I shall never go to sleep again, Antonia. If I shut my eyes I
shall find myself in the convent; and I do not want to go there even in
a dream. Do you know Mother Teresa? Well then, I could tell you things.
And she does not like me, I am sure of that; quite sure.”

“My darling, I am going to make us a cup of tea. It will do us good.”

“If indeed it were chocolate!”

“I cannot make chocolate now; but you shall have a great deal of sugar
in your cup, and something good to eat also. There, my darling, put
your chair close to the fire, and we will sit here until we are quite
sleepy.”

With the words she went into the kitchen. Molly was nodding over her
beads, in the comfortable radius made by the blazing logs; no one else
was present but a young peon. He brought a small kettle to the parlor
fire, and lifted a table to the hearth, and then replenished the pile
of logs for burning during the night. Isabel, cuddling in a large chair,
watched Antonia, as she went softly about putting on the table such
delicacies as she could find at that hour. Tamales and cold duck, sweet
cake and the guava jelly that was Isabel’s favorite dainty. There was
a little comfort in the sight of these things; and also, in the bright
silver teapot standing so cheerfully on the hearth, and diffusing
through the room a warm perfume, at once soothing and exhilarating.

“I really think I shall like that American tea to-night, Antonia, but
you must half fill my cup with those little blocks of sugar--quite half
fill it, Antonia; and have you found cream, my dear one? Then a great
deal of cream.”

Antonia stood still a moment and looked at the drowsy little beauty. Her
eyes were closed, and her head nestled comfortably in a corner of the
padded chair. Then a hand upon the door-handle arrested her attention,
and Antonia turned her eyes from Isabel and watched it. Ortiz, the peon,
put his head within the room, and then disappeared; but oh, wonder and
joy! Don Luis entered swiftly after him; and before any one could say
a word, he was kneeling by Isabel kissing her hand and mingling his
exclamations of rapture with hers.

Antonia looked with amazement and delight at this apparition. How had he
come? She put her hand upon his sleeve; it was scarcely wet. His dress
was splendid; if he had been going to a tertullia of the highest class,
he could not have been more richly adorned. And the storm was yet
raging! It was a miracle.

“Dear Luis, sit down! Here is a chair close to Iza! Tell her your
secrets a few minutes, and I will go for mi madre. O yes! She will come!
You shall see, Iza! And then, Luis, we shall have some supper.”

“You see that I am in heaven already, Antonia; though, indeed, I am also
hungry and thirsty, my sister.”

Antonia was not a minute in reaching her mother’s room. The unhappy lady
was half-lying among the large pillows of her gilded bed, wide awake.
Her black eyes were fixed upon a crucifix at its foot, and she was
slowly murmuring prayers upon her rosary.

“Madre! Madre! Luis is here, Luis is here! Come quick, mi madre. Here
are your stockings and slippers, and your gown, and your mantilla--no,
no, no, do not call Rachela. Luis has news of my father, and of Jack!
Oh, madre, he has a letter from Jack to you! Come dear, come, in a few
minutes you will be ready.”

She was urging and kissing the trembling woman, and dressing her in
despite of her faint effort to delay--to call Rachela--to bring Luis
to her room. In ten minutes she was ready. She went down softly, like a
frightened child, Antonia cheering and encouraging her in whispers.

When she entered the cheerful parlor the shadow of a smile flitted
over her wan face. Luis ran to meet her. He drew the couch close to the
hearth; he helped Antonia arrange her comfortably upon it. He made her
tea, and kissed her hands when he put it into them. And then Isabel made
Luis a cup, and cut his tamales, and waited upon him with such pretty
service, that the happy lover thought he was eating a meal in Paradise.

For a few minutes it had been only this ordinary gladness of reunion;
but it was impossible to ignore longer the anxiety in the eyes that
asked him so many questions. He took two letters from his pockets and
gave them to the Senora. They were from her husband and Jack. Her hands
trembled; she kissed them fervently; and as she placed them in her
breast her tears dropped down upon them.

Antonia opened the real conversation with that never-failing wedge,
the weather. “You came through the storm, Luis? Yet you are not wet,
scarcely? Now then, explain this miracle.”

“I went first to Lopez Navarro’s. Do you not know this festa dress? It
is the one Lopez bought for the feast of St. James. He lent it to me,
for I assure you that my own clothing was like that of a beggar man. It
was impossible that I could see my angel on earth in it.”

“But in such weather? You can not have come far to-day?”

“Senorita, there are things which are impossible, quite impossible!
That is one of them. Early this morning the north wind advanced upon
us, sword in hand. It will last fifty hours, and we shall know
something more about it before they are over. Very well, but it was also
absolutely necessary that some one should reach San Antonio to-night;
and I was so happy as to persuade General Burleson to send me. The Holy
Lady has given me my reward.”

“Have you seen the Senor Doctor lately; Luis,” asked the Senora.

“I left him at nightfall.”

“At nightfall! But that is impossible!”

“It is true. The army of the Americans is but a few miles from San
Antonio.”

“Grace of God! Luis!”

“As you say, Senora. It is the grace of God. Did you not know?”

“We know nothing but what Fray Ignatius tells us--that the Americans
have been everywhere pulling down churches, and granting martyrdom to
the priests, and that everywhere miraculous retributions have pursued
them.”

“Was Gonzales a retribution? The Senor Doctor came to us while we were
there. God be blessed; but he startled us like the rattle of rifle-shots
in the midnight! ‘Why were you not at Goliad?’ he cried. ‘There were
three hundred stand of arms there, and cannon, and plenty of provisions.
Why were they not yours?’ You would have thought, Senora, he had been a
soldier all his life. The men caught fire when he came near them, and we
went to Goliad like eagles flying for their prey. We took the town,
and the garrison, and all the arms and military stores. I will tell you
something that came to pass there. At midnight, as I and Jack stood
with the Senor Doctor by the camp-fire, a stranger rode up to us. It was
Colonel Milam. He was flying from a Mexican prison and had not heard
of the revolt of the Americans. He made the camp ring with his shout
of delight. He was impatient for the morning. He was the first man that
entered the garrison. Bravissimo! What a soldier is he!”

“I remember! I remember!” cried the Senora. “Mi Roberto brought him here
once. So splendid a man I never saw before. So tall, so handsome, so
gallant, so like a hero. He is an American from--well, then, I have
forgotten the place.”

“From Kentucky. He fought with the Mexicans when they were fighting for
their liberty; but when they wanted a king and a dictator he resigned
his commision{sic} and was thrown into prison. He has a long bill
against Santa Anna.”

“We must not forget, Luis,” said the Senora with a little flash of her
old temper, “that Santa Anna represents to good Catholics the triumph of
Holy Church.”

Luis devoutly crossed himself. “I am her dutiful son, I assure you,
Senora--always.”

A warning glance from Antonia changed the conversation. There was plenty
to tell which touched them mainly on the side of the family, and the
Senora listened, with pride which she could not conceal, to the exploits
of her husband and sons, though she did not permit herself to
confess the feeling. And her heart softened to her children. Without
acknowledging the tie between Isabel and Luis, she permitted or was
oblivious to the favors it allowed.

Certainly many little formalities could be dispensed with, in a meeting
so unexpected and so eventful. When the pleasant impromptu meal was
over, even the Senora had eaten and drunk with enjoyment. Then Luis set
the table behind them, and they drew closer to the fire, Luis holding
Isabel’s hand, and Antonia her mother’s. The Senora took a cigarette
from Luis, and Isabel sometimes put that of Luis between her rosy
lips. At the dark, cold midnight they found an hour or two of sweetest
consolation. It was indeed hard to weary these three heart-starved
women; they asked question after question, and when any brought out
the comical side of camp life they forget their pleasure was almost a
clandestine one, and laughed outright.

In the very midst of such a laugh, Rachela entered the room. She stood
in speechless amazement, gazing with a dark, malicious face upon the
happy group. “Senorita Isabel!” she screamed; “but this is abominable!
At the midnight also! Who could have believed in such wickedness? Grace
of Mary, it is inconceivable!”

She laid her hand roughly on Isabel’s shoulder, and Luis removed it with
as little courtesy. “You were not called,” he said, with the haughty
insolence of a Mexican noble to a servant--“Depart.”

“My Senora! Listen! You yourself also--you will die. You that are really
weak--so broken-hearted--”

Then a miracle occurred. The Senora threw off the nightmare of selfish
sorrow and spiritual sentimentality which had held her in bondage. She
took the cigarito from her lips with a scornful air, and repeated the
words of Luis:

“You were not called. Depart.”

“The Senorita Isabel?”

“Is in my care. Her mother’s care! do you understand?”

“My Senora, Fray Ignatius--”

“Saints in heaven! But this is intolerable! Go.”

Then Rachela closed the door with a clang which echoed through the
house. And say as we will, the malice of the wicked is never quite
futile. It was impossible after this interruption to recall the happy
spirit dismissed by it; and Rachela had the consolation, as she muttered
beside the fire in the Senora’s room, this conviction. So that when she
heard the party breaking up half an hour afterwards, she complimented
herself upon her influence.

“Will Jack come and see me soon, and the Senor Doctor?” questioned the
Senora, anxiously, as she held the hand of Luis in parting.

“Jack is on a secret message to General Houston. His return advices will
find us, I trust, in San Antonio. But until we have taken the city, no
American can safely enter it. For this reason, when it was necessary to
give Lopez Navarro certain instructions, I volunteered to bring them.
By the Virgin of Guadalupe! I have had my reward,” he said, lifting the
Senora’s hand and kissing it.

“But, then, even you are in danger.”

“Si! If I am discovered; but, blessed be the hand of God! Luis Alveda
knows where he is going, and how to get there.”

“I have heard,” said the Senora in a hushed voice, “that there are to be
no prisoners. That is Santa Anna’s order.”

“I heard it twenty days ago, and am still suffocating over it.”

“Ah, Luis, you do not know the man yet! I heard Fray Ignatius say that.”

“We know him well; and also what he is capable of”; and Luis plucked his
mustache fiercely, as he bowed a silent farewell to the ladies.

“Holy Maria! How brave he is!” said Isabel, with a flash of pride that
conquered her desire to weep. “How brave he is! Certainly, if he meets
Santa Anna, he will kill him.”

They went very quietly up-stairs. The Senora was anticipating the
interview she expected with Rachela, and, perhaps wisely, she isolated
herself in an atmosphere of sullen and haughty silence. She would
accept nothing from her, not even sympathy or flattery; and, in a curt
dismission, managed to make her feel the immeasurable distance between
a high-born lady of the house of Flores, and a poor manola that she had
taken from the streets of Madrid. Rachela knew the Senora was thinking
of this circumstance; the thought was in her voice, and it cowed and
snubbed the woman, her nature being essentially as low as her birth.

As for the Senora, the experience did her a world of good. She waited
upon herself as a princess might condescend to minister to her own
wants--loftily, with a smile at her own complaisance. The very knowledge
that her husband was near at hand inspired her with courage. She went to
sleep assuring herself “that not even Fray Ignatius should again speak
evil of her beloved, who never thought of her except with a loyal
affection.” For in married life, the wife can sin against love as well
as fidelity; and she thought with a sob of the cowardice which had
permitted Fray Ignatius to call her dear one “rebel and heretic.”

“Santa Dios!” she said in a passionate whisper; “it is not a mortal sin
to think differently from Santa Anna”--and then more tenderly--“those
who love each other are of the same faith.”

And if Fray Ignatius had seen at that moment the savage whiteness of her
small teeth behind the petulant pout of her parted lips, he might
have understood that this woman of small intelligence had also the
unreasoning partisanship and the implacable sense of anger which
generally accompanies small intelligence, and which indicates a nature
governed by feeling, and utterly irresponsive to reasoning which feeling
does not endorse.




CHAPTER VIII. MOTHER AND PRIEST.

           .  .  .  .   “witness,

         When the dark-stoled priestly crew,
         Came swift trooping where the trumpet
         Of foul Santa Anna blew.”
          *   *   *   *   *

        “Rouse thee, Wrath, and be a giant;
         People’s Will, that hath been pliant,
                        Long, too long;

         Up, and snap the rusty chaining,
         Brittle bond for thy restraining,
         Know the hour, the weak are reigning
                        Thou art strong.

         *  *   *   *   *

        “Rise and right the wrongs of ages;
         Balance Time’s unequal pages
                        With the sword.”


It was nearly two o’clock when Don Luis mounted his horse and left the
Worth residencia. The storm still raged, the night was dark, the cold
intense, but the home of Lopez Navarro was scarce a quarter of a mile
away; and he found him waiting his return.

“You have still an hour, Luis. Come in and sit with me.”

“As you say; and I wish to show you that I am capable of a great thing.
You do not believe me? Well, then give me again my own clothes. I will
resign these.”

“You are most welcome to them, Luis.”

“But no; I am in earnest. The fight is at hand--they are too fine.”

“Yes, but I will tell you--I can say anything to you--there is to be a
grand day for freedom; well, then, for a festa one puts on the best that
is to be got. I will even lend you my Cross of Saint James, if you wish.
A young hero should be dressed like a hero. Honor my poor clothes so far
as to wear them in the fight.”

“Thank you, Lopez. I will not disgrace them”; and he bent forward and
looked into his friend’s eyes. His glance prolonged his words--went
further than speech--went where speech could not reach.

“Listen to me, Luis. As a matter of precision, where now are the
Americans?”

“At the mission of Espada.”

“La Espada?--the sword--the name is ominous.”

“Of success, Lopez.”

“Is Houston, then, with you?”

“Until a few days ago. He and General Austin have gone to San Felipe.”

“For what? Is not San Antonio the most important point?”

“It was decided by the vote of the army to send them there to frame a
provisional government. There are plenty of fighters with us, but not
one statesman but Houston. And now it is necessary that we should have
legal authority to obtain loans, maintain the army in the field, and
many other such things vital to our cause. Austin is to go to the United
States. He will bring back men and money. Houston must draw up our
declaration and manifestoes; direct the civil government; forward
troops; and, in fact, set a new government in motion.”

“He is the loadstone in the bosom! [2] I wonder that the Americans
permitted that he should leave them.”

“He, and he only, was the man to go. Ere he left, he said some strange
words. I shall not, as a Mexican, forget them. In the midst of the men
he stood like a god, with his great stature, and his bright, strong
face. One cannot think of him as of a common mortal. Indeed, I will
confess that I could only compare him with the Efreet in the Arabian
tale, ‘whose nostrils were like trumpets, his eyes like lamps, and who
had dishevelled, dust colored hair’”

“But, to proceed; what were the strange words?”

“Thus he spoke, and his voice rang out like a clarion:

“‘You will fight as men fight for their homes, and their wives, and
their children, but also--remember this--the idea of Texas is in the
American heart! Two generations they have carried it there! It is your
destiny to make the idea a fact! As far back as eighteen nineteen, Adams
wanted Texas. When Adams became president, he told Poinsett to offer
Mexico a million of dollars for Texas. Clay would have voted three
millions. Van Buren, in eighteen twenty-nine, told Poinsett to offer
five millions for Texas. I went to Washington that year, and proposed to
revolutionize Texas. I declare to you that the highest men in the land
were of my mind. Only last July President Jackson offered an additional
half million dollars for the Rio Grande boundary; and Mr. Secretary
Forsyth said, justly or unjustly, by hook, or by crook, Texas must
become part of our country. We have been longing for it for fifty years!
Now, then, brothers-in-arms!’ he cried, ‘You are here for your homes
and your freedom; but, more than that, you are here for your country!’
Remember the thousands of Americans who have slipped out of history and
out of memory, who have bought this land with their blood! We have held
a grip on Texas for fifty years. By the soul of every American who has
perished here, I charge you, No Surrender!’

“You should have heard the shout that answered the charge. Jesu, Maria!
It made my heart leap to my bosom. And ever since, the two words have
filled the air. You could see men catching them on their lips. They
are in their eyes, and their walk. Their hands say them. The up-toss of
their heads says them. When they go into battle they will see Houston in
front of them, and hear him call back ‘No surrender!’ Mexico cannot hold
Texas against such a determined purpose, carried out by such determined
men.”

Lopez did not answer. He was a melancholy, well-read man, who had
travelled, and to whom the idea of liberty was a passion. But the
feeling of race was also strong in him, and he could not help regretting
that liberty must come to Texas through an alien people--“heretics,
too”--he muttered, carrying the thought out aloud. It brought others
equally living to him, and he asked, “Where, then, is Doctor Worth?”

“At Espada. The army wished him to go to San Felipe with Houston, but
he declined. And we want him most of all, both as a fighter and a
physician. His son Thomas went in his place.”

“I know not Thomas.”

“Indeed, very few know him. He is one that seldom speaks. But his rifle
has its word always ready.”

“And Jack?”

“Jack also went to San Felipe. He is to bring back the first despatches.
Jack is the darling of the camp. Ah, what a happy soul he has! One would
think that it had just come from heaven, or was just going there.”

“Did you see Senorita Antonia to-night?”

“Si! She is a blessing to the eyesight. So brave a young girl, so sweet,
so wise; she is a miracle! If I loved not Isabel with my whole soul, I
would kneel at Antonia’s feet.”

“That is where I also would kneel.”

“Hark! how the wind roars, and how the rain thrashes the house! But our
men have the shelter of one of the Panchos. You should have heard the
padre threaten them with the anger of heaven and hell and General Cos.
Good-bye, Lopez. I have stayed my last moment now.”

“Your horse has been well fed. Listen, he is neighing for you; to Doctor
Worth give my honorable regards. Is Senor Parades with you? and Perez
Mexia? Say to them I keep the vow I made in their behalf. Farewell,
Luis!” and Luis, who had been mounting as his friend talked, stooped
from his saddle and kissed him.

It was just dawn when he reached camp, and he found Doctor Worth waiting
his arrival. Fortunately there was nothing but good news for the doctor.
Luis had seen everything through the medium of his own happiness, and he
described the midnight meal and the Senora’s amiability with the utmost
freedom from anything unpleasant. Rachela’s interference he treated with
scornful indifference; and yet it affected Worth’s mind unpleasantly.
For it went straight to the source of offence. “She must have had Fray
Ignatius behind her. And my poor Maria, she will be as dough for them to
knead as they desire to!”

And, in fact, as he was thus thinking, the Senora was lying awake in her
bed, anticipating her confessor’s next visit. She was almost glad the
norther was still blowing. It would give her another day’s respite; and
“so many things happen as the clock goes round,” she reflected. Perhaps
even her Roberto might arrive; it would not be more wonderful than the
visit of Luis Alveda.

But very early in the day she saw the father hurrying up the oleander
avenue. The wind tossed his gown, and blew his hat backward and
sideways, and compelled him to make undignified haste. And such little
things affect the mental poise and mood! The Senora smiled at the funny
figure he made; and with the smile came a feeling of resistance to his
tyranny, and a stubborn determination to defend her own conduct.

He came into her room with a doleful countenance, saying, as he crossed
himself, “God be here!”

“And with you, father,” answered the Senora, cheerfully--a mood she had
assumed at the last moment, by a kind of instinct.

“There is evil news on every hand my daughter. The heretics are swarming
like wolves around the Missions. Several of our holy brothers have
endured the last extremity. These wolves will even enter the city, and
you will be in danger. I have come to take you to the convent. There,
Holy Mary will be your safety.”

“But these wolves might attack the convent, father!”

“Our Blessed Lady is stronger than they. She has always kept her own.”

“Blessed be the hand of God and Mary! will trust in them. Ah, Antonia!
Listen to Fray Ignatius! He says we must go to the convent--the heretics
are coming. They have even slain some priests at the Mission.”

“Fray Ignatius has been misinformed, dear mother. When a man wears a
gown and has no arms Americans do not molest him. That is certain. As
for the convent it is impossible. My father forbade it. If the Americans
enter the city, he is with them. He will protect us, if we should need
it, which is not likely.”

“Disobedient one!”

“Pardon. I wish only to obey the commands of my father.”

“I absolve you from them.”

“They are between God and my soul. There is no absolution from duty.”

“Grace of God! Hear you, Senora! Hear you the rebellious and disobedient
one! She has defied me to my face! She is near to being anathema! She is
not your daughter! She is bewitched. Some evil spirit has possession of
her. Let no one touch her or speak to her; it shall be a mortal sin.”

Antonia fell at her mother’s knee. “Mi madre! I am your daughter, your
Antonia, that you carried in your breast, and that loves you better than
life. Permit me not to be accused of sin--to be called a devil. Mother,
speak for me.”

At this moment Isabel entered. Seeing the distress of her mother and
sister she hastened to them; but Fray Ignatius stepped between, and
extending his arms forbade her nearer approach.

“I forbid you to speak to your sister. I forbid you to touch her, to
give her food, or water, or sympathy, until she has humbled herself, and
obtained the forgiveness of her sin.”

Then mother love stood up triumphant over superstition. “I and my
daughter are the same,” said the Senora, and she gave her hand to
Antonia. “If she has sinned, we will bear the penance together; she and
I together.”

“I command you to stand apart. For the good of Antonia’s sinful soul, I
command you to withdraw yourself from her.”

“She is my daughter, father. I will bear the sin and the punishment with
her. The Holy Mother will understand me. To her I will go.”

The door of her room was at hand; she stepped swiftly to it, and putting
her daughters before her, passed in and turned the key.

The movement took the priest by surprise, and yet he was secretly
satisfied with it. He had permitted himself to act with an imprudence
most unusual. He had allowed the Senora to find out her own moral
strength, and made a situation for her in which she had acted not only
without his support, but against his authority.

“And yet,” he muttered, “so much depends upon my persuading her into
the convent; however, nothing now is to be done to-day, except to see
Rachela. Saint Joseph! if these American heretics were only in my power!
What a long joy I would make of them! I would cut a throat--just one
throat--every day of my life.”

The hatred which could contemplate a vengeance so long drawn out was on
his dark face; yet, it is but justice to say, that he sincerely believed
it to be a holy hatred. The foes of the church, he regarded as the foes
of God; and his anger as a just zeal for the honor of the Lord of Hosts.
Beside which, it included a far more tangible cause.

The accumulated treasures of the Missions; their gold and gems, their
costly vestments and holy vessels, had been removed to the convent for
safety. “These infidels of Americans give to women the honor they should
give to God and Holy Church,” he said to his brethren. “They will not
suffer the Sisters to be molested; and our wealth will be safe wherever
they are.”

But this wealth was really so immense, that he believed it might be
well to secure it still further, and knowing the position Dr. Worth held
among his countrymen, he resolved to induce his wife and daughters
to seek refuge within the convent. They were, in fact, to be held as
hostages, for the protection of the property of the Church.

That he should fail in his plan was intolerable to him. He had been
so confident of success. He imagined the smile on the face of Fray
Sarapiam, and the warning against self-confidence he would receive from
his superior; and he vowed by Saint Joseph that he would not suffer
himself to be so mortified by three women.

Had he seen the Senora after the first excitement of her rebellion was
over, he would have been satisfied of the validity of his authority,
at least as regarded her. She flung herself at the foot of her altar,
weeping and beating her breast in a passion of self-accusation and
contrition. Certainly, she had stood by her daughter in the presence of
the priest; but in her room she withdrew herself from the poor girl as
if she were a spiritual leper.

Antonia at a distance watched the self-abasement of her mother. She
could not weep, but she was white as clay, and her heart was swollen
with a sense of wrong and injustice, until breathing was almost
suffocation. She looked with a piteous entreaty at Isabel. Her little
sister had taken a seat at the extremity of the room away from her. She
watched Antonia with eyes full of terror. But there was no sympathy in
her face, only an uncertainty which seemed to speak to her--to touch
her--and her mother was broken-hearted with shame and grief.

The anxiety was also a dumb one. Until the Senora rose from her knees,
there was not a movement made, not a word uttered. The girls waited
shivering with cold, sick with fear, until she spoke. Even then her
words were cold as the wind outside:

“Go to your room, Antonia. You have not only sinned; you have made me
sin also. Alas! Alas! Miserable mother! Holy Maria! pray for me.”

“Mi madre, I am innocent of wrong. I have committed no sin. Is it a sin
to obey my father? Isabel, darling, speak for me.”

“But, then, what have you done, Antonia?”

“Fray Ignatius wants us to go to the convent. I refused. My father made
me promise to do so. Is not our first duty to our father? Mother, is it
not?

“No, no; to God--and to Fray Ignatius, as the priest of God. He says we
ought to go to the convent. He knows best. We have been disobedient and
wicked.”

“Isabel, speak, my dear one. Tell mi madre if you think we should go.”

There was a moment’s wavering, and then Isabel went to her mother and
caressed her as only Isabel could caress her, and with the kisses, she
said boldly: “Mi madre, we will not go to the convent. Not any of us. It
is a dreadful place, even for a happy child. Oh, how cold and still are
the Sisters! They are like stone figures that move about.”

“Hush, child! I cannot listen to you! Go away! I must be alone. I must
think. I must pray. Only the Mother of Sorrows can help me.”

It was a miserable sequence to the happy night, and Antonia was really
terrified at the position in which she found herself. If the Americans
should fall, nothing but flight, or uncompromising submission to Fray
Ignatius, remained for her. She knew only too well how miserable
her life could be made; what moral torture could be inflicted; what
spiritual servitude exacted. In a moment of time she had comprehended
her danger, and her heart sank and sickened with a genuine physical
terror.

The cold was still severe, and no one answered her call for wood. Isabel
crouched, white and shivering, over the dying embers, and it was she who
first uttered the fear Antonia had refused to admit to herself--“Suppose
the servants are forbidden to wait upon us!”

“I will bring wood myself, dearest.” She was greatly comforted by
the word “us.” She could almost have wept for joy of the sympathy it
included. For thought is rapid in such crucial moments, and she had
decided that even flight with her would be a kinder fate for Isabel,
than the cruel tender mercies of the Sisters and the convent.

They could not talk much. The thought of their mother’s anguish, and
of the separation put between them and their household, shocked and
terrified them. Vainly they called for fuel. At dinner time no table was
laid, and no preparations made for the meal. Then Antonia went into the
kitchen. She took with her food, and cooked it. She brought wood into
the parlor, and made up the fire. Fortunately, her northern education
had given her plenty of resources for such emergencies. Two or three
savory dishes were soon ready, and the small table set upon a warm,
bright hearth.

The Senora had evidently not been included in the ban, for Rachela
attended with ostentatious care to her comfort; but Isabel had rolled
herself up in a wadded silk coverlet and gone to sleep. Antonia awakened
her with a kiss. “Come, queridita, and get your dinner.”

“But is it possible? I thought Fray Ignatius had forbidden it.”

“He cannot forbid me to wait upon you, my darling one. And he cannot
turn the flour into dust, and the meat into stone. There is a good
dinner ready; and you are hungry, no doubt.”

“For three hours I have been faint. Ah! you have made me a custard also!
You are a very comforter.”

But the girl was still and sad, and Antonia was hard pressed to find
any real comfort for her. For she knew that their only hope lay in the
immediate attack of the American force, and its success; and she did not
think it wise to hide from her sister the alternatives that lay before
them if the Americans failed.

“I am afraid,” said Isabel; “and so unhappy. A very sad business is
life. I cannot think how any one can care to live.”

“Remember Luis, and our father, and Jack, and Thomas, and our dear
mother, who this morning stood between us and Fray Ignatius. Will you
let this priest turn the sky black above you?”

“And also, men will fight. What for? Who can tell? The Americans want
so much of everything. Naturally they do not get all they want. What do
they do? Fight, and get killed. Then they go into the next world, and
complain of people. As for Luis, I do not expect to see him again.”

Fortunately, the norther moderated at sunset. Life then seemed so much
more possible. Adverse elements intensify adverse fortune, and the
physical suffering from the cold had also benumbed Antonia’s spirits,
and made her less hopeful and less clear-visioned. But when she awoke
at the gray dawn of the next day, she awoke with a different spirit. She
had regained herself. She rose quietly, and looked out towards the city.
The black flag from the Alamo and the Missions hung above it. She looked
at the ominous standards, and then the tears sprang to her eyes; she
lifted her face and her hands to heaven, and a few words, swifter
than light, sprang from her soul into the ear of the Eternal Father of
Spirits.

The answer came with the petition--came with the crack of rifle shots;
precise, regular, unceasing.

“Oh God! I thank Thee! Lord of Hosts, Thou art a great multitude!
Isabel! Isabel! The Americans are attacking the city! Our father will
fight his way back to his home! Fray Ignatius can not come to-day. Oh,
I am so happy! So happy! Listen! How the Mexicans are shouting! They are
cheering on the men! What a turmoil!”

“Jesu, Maria, have mercy!” cried Isabel, clasping her crucifix and
falling upon her knees.

“Oh, Isabel, pray for our father, that his angel may overshadow him with
strong wings.”

“And Luis?”

“And Luis, and Thomas, and Jack, and Dare. There are prayers for them
all, and love enough to make them. Hark! there are the drums, and the
trumpets, and the gallop of the cavalry. Come, dearest, let us go to our
mother. To day, no one will remember Fray Ignatius.”




CHAPTER IX. THE STORMING OF THE ALAMO.

                            “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 Navarr

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