“He is the loadstone in the bosom! [2] I wonder that the Americans permitted that he should leave them.”
“He, and he only, was the man to go. Ere he left, he said some strange words. I shall not, as a Mexican, forget them. In the midst of the men he stood like a god, with his great stature, and his bright, strong face. One cannot think of him as of a common mortal. Indeed, I will confess that I could only compare him with the Efreet in the Arabian tale, ‘whose nostrils were like trumpets, his eyes like lamps, and who had dishevelled, dust colored hair’”
“But, to proceed; what were the strange words?”
“Thus he spoke, and his voice rang out like a clarion:
“‘You will fight as men fight for their homes, and their wives, and their children, but also—remember this—the idea of Texas is in the American heart! Two generations they have carried it there! It is your destiny to make the idea a fact! As far back as eighteen nineteen, Adams wanted Texas. When Adams became president, he told Poinsett to offer Mexico a million of dollars for Texas. Clay would have voted three millions. Van Buren, in eighteen twenty-nine, told Poinsett to offer five millions for Texas. I went to Washington that year, and proposed to revolutionize Texas. I declare to you that the highest men in the land were of my mind. Only last July President Jackson offered an additional half million dollars for the Rio Grande boundary; and Mr. Secretary Forsyth said, justly or unjustly, by hook, or by crook, Texas must become part of our country. We have been longing for it for fifty years! Now, then, brothers-in-arms!’ he cried, ‘You are here for your homes and your freedom; but, more than that, you are here for your country!’ Remember the thousands of Americans who have slipped out of history and out of memory, who have bought this land with their blood! We have held a grip on Texas for fifty years. By the soul of every American who has perished here, I charge you, No Surrender!’
“You should have heard the shout that answered the charge. Jesu, Maria! It made my heart leap to my bosom. And ever since, the two words have filled the air. You could see men catching them on their lips. They are in their eyes, and their walk. Their hands say them. The up-toss of their heads says them. When they go into battle they will see Houston in front of them, and hear him call back ‘No surrender!’ Mexico cannot hold Texas against such a determined purpose, carried out by such determined men.”
Lopez did not answer. He was a melancholy, well-read man, who had travelled, and to whom the idea of liberty was a passion. But the feeling of race was also strong in him, and he could not help regretting that liberty must come to Texas through an alien people—“heretics, too”—he muttered, carrying the thought out aloud. It brought others equally living to him, and he asked, “Where, then, is Doctor Worth?”
“At Espada. The army wished him to go to San Felipe with Houston, but he declined. And we want him most of all, both as a fighter and a physician. His son Thomas went in his place.”
“I know not Thomas.”
“Indeed, very few know him. He is one that seldom speaks. But his rifle has its word always ready.”