Remember the Alamo

“Pardon, father. Ruth was the ancestress of our blessed Saviour, and of the Virgin Mary.”

“Believe not the wicked one, Senora? She is blinded with false knowledge. She is a heretic. I have long suspected it. She has not been to confession for nine months.”

“You wrong me, father. Every day, twice a day, I confess my sins humbly.”

“Chito! You are in outrageous sin. But, then, what else? I hear, indeed, that you read wicked books—even upon your knees you read them.”

“I read my Bible, father.”

“Bring it to me. How could a child like you read the Bible? It is a book for bishops and archbishops, and the Immaculate Father himself. What an arrogance? What an insolence of self-conceit must possess so young a heart? Saints of God! It confounds me.”

The girl stood with burning cheeks gazing at the proud, passionate man, but she did not obey his order.

“Senora, my daughter! See you with your own eyes the fruit of your sin. Will you dare to become a partner in such wickedness?”

“Antonia! Antonia! Go at once and bring here this wicked book. Oh, how can you make so miserable a mother who loves you so much?”

In a few moments Antonia returned with the objectionable book. “My dear grandmother gave it to me,” she said. “Look, mi madre, here is my name in her writing. Is it conceivable that she would give to your Antonia a book that she ought not to read?”

The Senora took it in her hands and turned the leaves very much as a child might turn those of a book in an unknown tongue, in which there were no illustrations nor anything that looked the least interesting. It was a pretty volume of moderate size, bound in purple morocco, and fastened with gilt clasps.

“I see the word GOD in it very often, Fray Ignatius. Perhaps, indeed, it is not bad.”

“It is a heretic Bible, I am sure. Could anything be more sinful, more disrespectful to God, more dangerous for a young girl?” and as he said the words he took it from the Senora’s listless hands, glanced at the obnoxious title-page, and then, stepping hastily to the hearth, flung the book upon the burning logs.

With a cry of horror, pain, amazement, all blended, Antonia sprang towards the fire, but Fray Ignatius stood with outstretched arms, before it.

“Stand back!” he cried. “To save your soul from eternal fires, I burn the book that has misled you!”

“Oh, my Bible! Oh, my Bible! Oh, mother! mother!” and sobbing and crying out in her fear and anger, she fled down stairs and called the peon Ortiz.

“Do you know where to find the Senor Doctor? If you do, Ortiz, take the swiftest horse and bring him here.”

The man looked with anger into the girl’s troubled face. For a moment he was something unlike himself. “I can find him; I will bring him in fifteen minutes. Corpus Christi it is here he should be.”

The saddled horse in the stable was mounted as he muttered one adjuration and oath after another, and Antonia sat down at the window to watch for the result of her message. Fortunately, Rachela had been so interested in the proceedings, and so determined to know all about them, that she seized the opportunity of the outcry to fly to “her poor Senora,” and thus was ignorant of the most unusual step taken by Antonia.

Indeed, no one was aware of it but herself and Ortiz; and the servants in the kitchen looked with a curious interest at the doctor riding into the stable yard as if his life depended upon his speed. Perhaps it did. All of them stopped their work to speculate upon the circumstance.

They saw him fling himself from the saddle they saw Antonia run to meet him; they heard her voice full of distress—they knew it was the voice of complaint. They were aware it was answered by a stamp on the flagged hall of the doctor’s iron-heeled boot—which rang through the whole house, and which was but the accompaniment of the fierce exclamation that went with it.

They heard them mount the stairs together, and then they were left to their imaginations. As for Antonia, she was almost terrified at the storm she had raised. Never had she seen anger so terrible. Yet, though he had not said a word directly to her, she was aware of his full sympathy. He grasped her hand, and entered the Senora’s room with her. His first order was to Rachela—

“Leave the house in five minutes; no, in three minutes. I will tell Ortiz to send your clothes after you. Go!”

“My Senora! Fray I—”

“Go!” he thundered. “Out of my house! Fly! I will not endure you another moment.”

The impetus of his words was like a great wind. They drove the woman before him, and he shut the door behind her with a terrifying and amazing rage. Then he turned to the priest—

“Fray Ignatius, you have abused my hospitality, and my patience. You shall do so no longer. For twenty-six years I have suffered your interference-”

“The Senor is a prudent man. The wise bear what they cannot resist”; and with a gentle smile and lifted eyebrows Fray Ignatius crossed himself.

“I have respected your faith, though it was the faith of a bigot; and your opinions, though they were false and cruel, because you believed honestly in them. But you shall not again interfere with my wife, or my children, or my servants, or my house.”

“The Senor Doctor is not prince, or pope. ‘Shall,’ and ‘SHALL NOT,’ no one but my own ecclesiastical superiors can say to me.”

“I say, you shall not again terrify my wife and insult my daughter, and disorganize my whole household! And, as the God of my mother hears me, you shall not again burn up His Holy Word under my roof. Never, while I dwell beneath it, enter my gates, or cross my threshold, or address yourself to any that bear my name, or eat my bread.” With the words, he walked to the door and held it open. It was impossible to mistake the unspoken order, and there was something in the concentrated yet controlled passion of Robert Worth which even the haughty priest did not care to irritate beyond its bounds.

He gathered his robe together, and with lifted eyes muttered an ejaculatory prayer. Then he said in slow, cold, precise tones:

“For the present, I go. Very good. I shall come back again. The saints will take care of that. Senora, I give you my blessing. Senor, you may yet find the curse of a poor priest an inconvenience.”

He crossed himself at the door, and cast a last look at the Senora, who had thrown herself upon her knees, and was crying out to Mary and the saints in a passion of excuses and reproaches. She was deaf to all her husband said. She would not suffer Antonia to approach her. She felt that now was the hour of her supreme trial. She had tolerated the rebellion of her husband, and her sons, and her daughter, and now she was justly punished. They had driven away from her the confessor, and the maid who had been her counsellor and her reliance from her girlhood.

Her grief and terror were genuine, and therefore pitiful; and, in spite of his annoyance, the doctor recognized the fact. In a moment, as soon as they were alone, he put aside his anger. He knelt beside her, he soothed her with tender words, he pleaded the justice of his indignation. And ere long she began to listen to his excuses, and to complain to him:

He had been born a heretic, and therefore might be excused a little, even by Almighty God. But Antonia! Her sin was beyond endurance. She herself, and the good Sisters, and Fray Ignatius, had all taught her in her infancy the true religion. And her Roberto must see that this was a holy war—a war for the Holy Catholic Church. No wonder Fray Ignatius was angry.

“My dear Maria, every church thinks itself right; and all other churches wrong. God looks at the heart. If it is right, it makes all worship true. But when the Americans have won Texas, they will give to every one freedom to worship God as they wish.”

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

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

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

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

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

She took her husband’s hands and kissed them. “That indeed! Oh, Roberto! If I could only see my Jack once more! I have had a constant accusation to bear about him. Till I kiss my boy again, the world will be all dark before my face. If Our Lady will grant me this miraculous favor, I will always afterwards be exceedingly religious. I will give all my desires to the other world.”

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

“As you say. If I could only see Jack! For that, I would promise God Almighty and you Roberto to be happy. I would forgive the rebels and the heretics—for they are well acquainted with hell road, and will guide each other there without my wish.”

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

“Well now, it was God’s will that General Cos should surrender. What more can be said? It is sufficient.”

“Let me call Antonia. She is miserable at your displeasure; and it is not Antonia’s fault.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XI. A HAPPY TRUCE

        “Well, honor is the subject of my story;         I cannot tell what you and other men         Think of this life; but for my single self,         I had as lief not be, as live to be         In awe of such a thing as I myself.”        “Two truths are told         As happy prologues to the swelling act,         Of the imperial theme.”        “This is the eve of Christmas,         No sleep from night to morn;         The Virgin is in travail,         At twelve will the Child be born.”

Cities have not only a certain physiognomy; they have also a decided mental and moral character, and a definite political tendency. There are good and bad cities, artistic and commercial cities, scholarly and manufacturing cities, aristocratic and radical cities. San Antonio, in its political and social character, was a thoroughly radical city. Its population, composed in a large measure of adventurous units from various nationalities, had that fluid rather than fixed character, which is susceptible to new ideas. For they were generally men who had found the restraints of the centuries behind them to be intolerable—men to whom freedom was the grand ideal of life.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lopez Navarro touched the doctor and directed his attention to them. “Does the world, Senor, contain the stuff to make their counterparts?”

“They are Americans, Navarro. And though there are a variety of Americans, they have only one opinion about submitting to tyrants—THEY WON’T DO IT!”

This was the conversation interrupted by Ortiz and the message he brought, and the doctor was thoroughly sobered by the events following. He was not inclined to believe, as the majority of the troops did, that Mexico was conquered. He expected that the Senora’s prediction would be verified. And the personal enmity which the priesthood felt to him induced a depressing sense of personal disaster.

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

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

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

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

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

In about six days the Mexican forces left the city. The terms of surrender granted General Cos struck the Mexicans with a kind of wonder. They had fought with the express declaration that they would take no American prisoner. Yet the Americans not only permitted Cos and his troops to leave under parole of honor, but gave them their arms and sufficient ammunition to protect themselves from the Indians on their journey home. They allowed them also all their private property. They furnished them with the provisions necessary to reach the Rio Grande. They took charge of their sick and wounded. They set all the Mexican prisoners at liberty—in short, so great was their generosity and courtesy that the Mexicans were unable to comprehend their motives.

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

“Santa Anna is but a man, Lopez.”

“Me perdonas! He is however a man who knows a trick more than the devil. One must be careful of a bull in front, of a mule behind, and of a monk and Santa Anna on all sides. At the word monk, Lopez glanced significantly at a passing priest, and Doctor Worth saw that it was Fray Ignatius.

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

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

The gates of Alamo were open. Crockett lounged upon his rifle in the Plaza. A little crowd was around him, and the big Tennesseean hunter was talking to them. Shouts of laughter, bravas of enthusiasm, answered the homely wit and stirring periods that had over and over “made room for Colonel Crockett,” both in the Tennessee Legislature and the United States Congress. His rifle seemed a part of him—a kind of third arm. His confident manner, his manliness and bravery, turned his wit into wisdom. The young fellows around found in him their typical leader.

The elegant James Bowie was sitting on the verandah of the Veramendi House, calmly smoking. His fair, handsome face, clear blue eyes and mild manners, gave no indication of the gigantic physical strength and tremendous coolness and courage of the man who never tolerated an enemy in his presence. Burleson and Travis were talking under the shade of a China tree, and there were little groups of American soldiers on every street; this was what he saw, and yet a terrible sense of insecurity oppressed him.

The city, moreover, was not settling to its usual business, though there were many preparations for public and private entertainments. After passing Colonel Bowie, he met David Burnett. The shrewd statesman from New Jersey had a shadow upon his face. He stopped Doctor Worth and spoke frankly to him. “We are in greater danger now than when we were under fire,” he said. “Santa Anna will come on us like a lion from the swellings of Jordan. I wish Houston knew our position as it really is. We must either have more men to defend this city or we must blow up the Alamo and be ready to leave it at a moment’s notice.”

“Why were such favorable terms given to General Cos and his troops? I cannot understand it.”

“I will tell you an amazing fact. When Cos ran up that white flag on the Alamo, we had not a single round of ammunition left; complaisance was necessary until Cos made over to us the Mexican arms, ammunition, property and money.”

Worth turned and looked at the fort. A great red flag on which was the word T-E-X-A-S floated from its battlements, and there were two men standing on its roof, with their faces westward.