As Stover and Dan ran into the church building, there was a loud report in the courtyard. The Mexicans had captured one of the cannon, and turned it upon the long ward of the hospital building, and the grape-shot laid fifteen Texans low. The Texans were now fighting from room to room of the convent, and the whole place looked like a slaughter-pen.
"To the church!" came the cry. "To the church! Let the last stand be in the church!" The cry was taken up on all sides, and every Texan who could do so ran for the church with all possible speed. In the meantime, the stockade had been carried, and fresh Mexican soldiers were pouring over this in droves.
At the entrance to the church stood Davy Crockett, clubbed rifle in hand, and with the blood pouring from a wound in the head.
"Rally around me, boys!" he shouted. "Don't give up! We are bound to whip 'em yet!" And as the first of the Mexicans came on, he laid two of them low with one mighty blow of his favourite "Betsy," that cracked the rifle in half. And, as the rifle fell, so did lion-hearted Davy Crockett, to rise no more.
With the fall of Crockett, the other Texans, especially those who had emigrated from Tennessee, fought like demons, and soon the whole church was so thick with smoke that scarcely one man could be told from another. In a side apartment lay Bowie, suffering from a fall from a platform, where he had been directing operations. As the Mexicans swarmed into the room, Bowie raised himself up and fired his pistols. Seeing this, the Mexicans retreated, and fired on him from behind the door, killing him almost instantly.
It had been decided that, should the worst come to the worst, the Texans must fire the powder-magazine located in one part of the church. It was now seen that further resistance would be useless.
"The magazine!" came from half a dozen. "Blow the Mexicans up!"
"I will!" shouted back Major T. C. Evans, commander of the artillery, and started forward with a firebrand for the purpose. The Mexicans, however, saw the movement, and before Evans could go a dozen paces, a score of guns were aimed at him, and he went down fairly riddled with bullets.
"I'm shot!" cried Poke Stover, in the midst of the din and confusion, and clapped his hand to his left shoulder. He had been leading Dan to a rear apartment of the church, between overturned benches and sacks of wheat and rice.
"Shot?" gasped the boy. "Where? Oh, I hope it isn't serious!"