"
"The cry of Santa Anna has been like the cry of wolf! wolf!"
said Bowie. "I hear that great numbers that were under arms
have gone home to plant their corn and cotton. Do you want
Santa Anna to murder them piecemeal--house by house,
family by family? Great George! Which of us would
accommodate him with a prolonged pleasure like that? No! he
shall have a square fight for every life lie gets"; and the
calm, gentlemanly Bowie was suddenly transformed into a
flashing, vehement, furious avenger. He laid his knife and
pistols on the table, his steel-blue eyes scintillated as if
they were lightning; his handsome mouth, his long, white
hands, his whole person radiated wrath and expressed the
utmost lengths of invincible courage and insatiable hatred.
"Gentlemen," answered Travis, "I go with Crockett and Bowie.
If we hold the Alamo, it is a deed well done. If we fall with
it, it is still a deed well done. We shall have given to
Houston and Fanning time to interpose themselves between Santa
Anna and the settlements."
"We have none of us lived very well," said Bowie, "but we can
die well. I say as an American, that Texas is ours by right
of natural locality, and by right of treaty; and, as I live,
I will do my best to make it American by right of conquest!
Comrades, I do not want a prettier quarrel to die in"--and
looking with a brave, unflinching gaze around the grim
fortress--"I do not want a better monument than the Alamo!"
The speech was not answered with any noisy hurrahing; but the
men around the bare, long table clasped hands across it, and
from that last interview with the doomed men Thomas Worth came
away with the knowledge that he had seen the battle begun.
Pages:
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239