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 Senora 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 Senor, Senor! tell me no more. My heart can not endure it."

"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."

"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. Of the defenders of
the Alamo, not one is left."

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