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again these attempts were made, until the garrison in the Alamo were exhausted with the struggle."

Navarro paused a few minutes, overpowered by his emotions. No one spoke. He could see Antonia's face, white as a spirit's, in the dim light, and he knew that Isabel was weeping and that the Señora had taken his hand.

"At last, at the hour of ten, the outer wall was gained. Then, room by room was taken with slaughter incredible. There were fourteen Americans in the hospital. They fired their rifles and pistols from their pallets with such deadly aim that Milagros turned a cannon shotted with grape and canister upon them. They were blown to pieces, but at the entrance of the door they left forty dead Mexicans."

"Ah Señor, Señor! tell me no more. My heart can not endure it."

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"Mi madre," answered Isabel, we must hear it all. Without it, one cannot learn to hate Santa Anna sufficiently "; and her small, white teeth snapped savagely, as she touched the hand of Lopez with an imperative "Proceed."

"Colonel Bowie was helpless in bed. Two

Mexican officers fired at him, and one ran forward to stab him ere he died. The dying man caught his murderer by the hair of his head, and plunged his knife into his heart. They went to judgment at the same moment."

"I am glad of it! Glad of it! The American would say to the Almighty: Thou gavest me life, and thou gavest me freedom; freedom, that is the nobler gift of the two. This man robbed me of both.'. And God is just. The Judge of the whole earth will do right."

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At noon, only six of the one hundred and eighty-three were left alive. They were surrounded by Castrillon and his soldiers. Xavier says his general was penetrated with admiration for these heroes. He spoke sympathizingly to Crockett, who stood in an angle of the fort, with his shattered rifle in his right hand, and his massive knife, dripping with blood, in his left. His face was gashed, his white hair crimson with blood; but a score of Mexicans, dead and dying, were around him. At his side was Travis, but so exhausted that he was scarcely alive.

"Castrillon could not kill these heroes. He asked their lives of Santa Anna, who stood

with a scowling, savage face in this last citadel of his foes. For answer, he turned to the men around him, and said, with a malignant emphasis: Fire!' It was the last volley.

defenders of the Alamo, not one is left."

Of the

A solemn silence followed. For a few minutes it was painful in its intensity. Isabel broke it. She spoke in a whisper, but her voice was full of intense feeling. "I wish indeed the whole city had been burnt up. There was a fire this afternoon; I would be glad if it were burning yet."

"May God pardon us all, Señorita! That was a fire which does not go out. It will burn for ages. I will explain myself. Santa Anna had the dead Americans put into ox-wagons, and carried to an open field outside the city. There they were burnt to ashes. The glorious pile was still casting lurid flashes and shadows as I passed it."

"I will hear no more! I will hear no more!" cried the Señora. "And I will go away from here. Ah, Señor, why do you not make haste? In a few hours we shall have daylight again. I am in a terror. Where is Ortiz ?"

"The horses are not caught in a five minutes,

Señora. But listen, there is the roll of the wagon on the flagged court. All, then, is ready. Señora, show now that you are of a noble house, and in this hour of adversity be brave, as the Flores have always been."

She was pleased by the entreaty, and took his arm with a composure which, though assumed, was a sort of strength. She entered the wagon with her daughters, and uttered no word of complaint. Then Navarro locked the gate, and took his seat beside Ortiz. The prairie turf deadened the beat of their horses' hoofs; they went at a flying pace, and when the first pallid light of morning touched the east, they had left San Antonio far behind and were nearing the beautiful banks of the Cibolo.

CHAPTER XV.

GOLIAD.

"How sleep the brave who sink to rest By all their country's wishes bless'd?

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By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung.
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,

To dwell a weeping hermit there."

"How shall we rank thee upon glory's page?
Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage.”

"Grief fills the room up of my absent child; Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me; Remembers me of all his gracious parts."

EAR midnight, on March the ninth, the

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weary fugitives arrived at Gonzales. They had been detained by the deep mud in the bottom lands, and by the extreme exhaustion of the ladies, demanding some hours' rest each day. The village was dark and quiet. Here and there the glimmer of a

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