EEL what I can never
tell. But I shall honor Senor Houston. I shall say to him some day.
'Senor, the unseen battalions--the mighty dead as well as the mighty
living--won the battle.' Roberto, believe me, there are things women
understand better than wise men."

A little awe, a solemn silence, answered the earnest woman. Luis and
Isabel came close to her, and Isabel took her hand. Lopez resumed the
conversation. "I know Colonel Bowie," he said. "In the last days at
San Antonio I was often with him. Brave as a lion, true to his friends,
relentless to his foes, was he. The knife he made was the expression of
his character in steel. It is a knife of extreme unction--the oil and
wafer are all that remains for the men who feels its edge. For my part,
I honor the Senora's thought. It is a great satisfaction to me to hope
that Bowie, and Crockett, and Travis, and Fannin, and all their company
were present at San Jacinto. If the just God permitted it, 'twas a favor
of supreme justice."

"But then you are not alone in the thought, Lopez. I heard General
Sherman say, 'Poor Fannin! He has been blamed for not obeying Houston's
orders. I THINK HE OBEYED THEM TO-DAY.' At the moment I did not
comprehend; but now it is plain to me. He thought Fannin had been
present, and perhaps it was this belief made him so impetuous and
invincible. He fought like a spirit; one forgot that he was flesh and
blood."

"Sherman is of a grand stock," said the doctor; "descended from the
wise Roger Sherman; bred in Massachusetts and trained in all the hardy
virtues of her sons. It was from his lips the battle-cry of 'REMEMBER
THE ALAMO!' sprang."

"But then, Roberto, nothing shall persuade me that my countrymen are
cowards."

"On the contrary, Maria, they kept their ground with great courage.
They were slain by hundreds just where they stood when the battle began.
Twenty-six officers and nearly seven hundred men were left dead upon the
field. But the flight was still more terrible. Into the bayou horses
and men rolled down together. The deep black stream became red; it was
choked up with their dead bodies, while the mire and water of the morass
was literally bridged with the smothered mules and horses and soldiers."

"The battle began at three o'clock; but we heard the firing only for a
very short time," said Antonia.

"After we reached their breastworks it lasted just eighteen minutes. At
four, the whole Mexican army was dead, or flying in every d