t was a fight at first with rifles and musketry at long range; then
closer as the hostile host came crowding in upon them; the bullets sent
through windows and loopholed walls--some from the flat parapetted roofs
of the houses--till at length it became a conflict hand to hand with
knife, sword, and pistol, or guns clubbed--being empty, with no time to
reload them--many a Texan braining one antagonist with the butt of his
piece after having sent its bullet through the body of another!

Vain all! Brute strength, represented by superior numbers, triumphed
over warlike prowess, backed by indomitable courage; and the "Mier
Expedition," from which Texas had expected so much, ended disastrously,
though ingloriously; those who survived being made prisoners, and
carried off to the capital of Mexico.

Of the Volunteer Corps which composed this ill-fated expedition--and
they were indeed all volunteers--none gave better account of itself than
that organised in Poydras Street, New Orleans, and among its individual
members no man behaved better than he whom they had chosen as their
leader. Florence Kearney had justified their choice, and proved true to
the trust, as all who outlived that fatal day ever after admitted.
Fortunately, he himself was among the survivors; by a like good luck, so
too were his first-lieutenant Crittenden and Cris Rock. As at
"Fanning's Massacre," so at Mier the gigantic Texan performed prodigies
of valour, laying around him, and slaying on all sides, till at length
wounded and disabled, like a lion beset by a _chevaux-de-frise_ of
Caffre assegais, he was compelled to submit. Fighting side by side,
with the man he had first taken a fancy to on the Levee of New Orleans,
and afterwards became instrumental in making captain of his corps--
finding this man to be what he had conjecturally believed and pronounced
him--of the "true grit"--Cris Rock now felt for Florence Kearney almost
the affection of a father, combined with the grand respect which one
gallant soul is ever ready to pay another. Devotion, too, so strong and
real, that had the young Irishman called upon him for the greatest risk
of his life, in any good or honourable cause, he would have responded to
the call without a moment's hesitancy or murmur. Nay, more than risk;
he would have laid it down, absolutely, to save that of his cherished
leader.

Proof of this was, in point of fact, afforded but a short while after.
Any one acquainted with Tex