w
which--exclaim.

Then he saw the officers rushing about, shouting to the men, striking
them with the flats of their swords and urging them on. The Mexican army
responded to the appeal, lifted itself up and continued its rush. The
fire from the Alamo seemed to Ned to increase. The fortress was a living
flame. He had not thought that men could fire so fast, but they had
three or four rifles apiece.

The silence which had replaced the shrill shouting in the town
continued. All the crash was now in front of them, and where they stood
the sound of the human voice would carry. In a dim far-away manner Ned
heard the guards talking to one another. Their words showed uneasiness.
It was not the swift triumphal rush into the Alamo that they had
expected. Great swaths had been cut through the Mexican army. Santa Anna
paled more than once when he saw his men falling so fast.

"They cannot recoil! They cannot!" he cried.

But they did. The column led by Colonel Duque, a brave man, was now at
the northern wall, and the men were rushing forward with the crowbars,
axes and scaling ladders. The Texan rifles, never more deadly, sent down
a storm of bullets upon them. A score of men fell all at once. Among
them was Duque, wounded terribly. The whole column broke and reeled
away, carrying Duque with them.

Ned saw the face of Santa Anna turn purple with rage. He struck the
earthwork furiously with the flat of his sword.

"Go! Go!" he cried to Gaona and Tolsa. "Rally them! See that they do not
run!"

The two generals sprang from the battery and rushed to their task. The
Mexican cannon had ceased firing, for fear of shooting down their own
men, and the smoke was drifting away from the field. The morning was
also growing much lighter. The gray dawn had turned to silver, and the
sun's red rim was just showing above the eastern horizon.

The Texan cannon were silent, too. The rifles were now doing all the
work. The volume of their fire never diminished. Ned saw the field
covered with slain, and many wounded were drifting back to the shelter
of the earthworks and the town.

Duque's column was rallied, but the column on the east and the column on
the west were also driven back, and Santa Anna rushed messenger after
messenger, hurrying up fresh men, still driving the whole Mexican army
against the Alamo. He shouted orders incessantly, although he remained
safe within the shelter of the battery.

Ned felt an immense joy. He had seen t