still poured
bullets on the swarming Mexican forces, but the breach had been made.
The Mexicans went over the low wall in an unbroken stream, and they
crowded through the sallyport by hundreds. They were inside now, rushing
with the overwhelming weight of twenty to one upon the little garrison.
They seized the Texan guns, cutting down the gunners with lances and
sabers, and they turned the captured cannon upon the defenders.

Some of the buildings inside the walls were of adobe, and they were soon
shattered by the cannon balls. The Texans, covered with smoke and dust
and the sweat of battle, were forced back by the press of numbers into
the convent yard, and then into the church and hospital. Here the cannon
and rifles in hundreds were turned upon them, but they still fought.
Often, with no time to reload their rifles, they clubbed them, and drove
back the Mexican rush.

The Alamo was a huge volcano of fire and smoke, of shouting and death.
Those who looked on became silent again, appalled at the sights and
sounds. The smoke rose far above the mission, and caught by a light
wind drifted away to the east. The Mexican generals brought up fresh
forces and drove them at the fortress. A heavy column, attacking on the
south side, where no defenders were now left, poured over a stockade and
crowded into the mission. The circle of cavalry about the Alamo again
drew closer, lest any Texan should escape. But it was a useless
precaution. None sought flight.

In very truth, the last hope of the Alamo was gone, and perhaps there
was none among the defenders who did not know it. There were a few wild
and desperate characters of the border, whom nothing in life became so
much as their manner of leaving it. In the culminating moment of the
great tragedy they bore themselves as well as the best.

Travis, the commander, and Bonham stood in the long room of the hospital
with a little group around them, most of them wounded, the faces of all
black with powder smoke. But they fought on. Whenever a Mexican appeared
at the door an unerring rifle bullet struck him down. Fifty fell at that
single spot before the rifles, yet they succeeded in dragging up a
cannon, thrust its muzzle in at the door and fired it twice loaded with
grape shot into the room.

The Texans were cut down by the shower of missiles, and the whole place
was filled with smoke. Then the Mexicans rushed in and the few Texans
who had survived the grape shot fell fighting to