“The wust,” answered Henry, without stopping. “All gone under; wiped out complete.” And he continued straight for General Houston’s headquarters tent. He had been riding hard.
Ernest and Jim stared at one another.
“That was true, then,” faltered Jim.
Ernest nodded. He could not speak. The picture was too horrible. Think of it—a hundred and eighty men, brave men, half of whom he knew, and had fought beside, killed—probably slaughtered!
“Come on,” bade Jim. “We’ll go where we can hear.”
Weak in his knees, his feet leaden, Ernest kept up with him. So swiftly had spread the tidings that almost instantly the camp was in a buzz; some of the men remained sitting, as if stunned; others sprang to their feet, and made, like Jim and Ernest, for headquarters, to stand before the tent flaps, murmurous and waiting.
Henry Karnes was talking inside. Colonel Burleson hastily entered. Colonel Hockley, the chief of staff, was there. Presently Henry Karnes emerged, pale through his freckled tan. Now it was no use to conceal matters, and he spoke freely, his voice shaking.
He and Deaf Smith and Richard Handy had ridden only twenty miles out of Gonzales (cautiously, on the watch for danger) when they had sighted a little party coming toward them on the road—a woman on a horse and two men afoot. It was Mrs. Dickinson, carrying her baby, and accompanied by Colonel Travis’s negro boy, Sam, and Ben, another negro who had escaped from Colonel Almonte of the Mexican army.
Mrs. Dickinson said that she and her baby, and Sam, and a Mexican sister-in-law of Colonel Bowie with her little sister, and another Mexican woman, were the only persons left alive who had been in the Alamo. General Santa Anna had sent her with a proclamation from him to tell Texas that the Alamo had fallen, and that now if Texas would submit and lay down its arms he would pardon its rebels. If not——! But imagine a pardon from Santa Anna!
The last attack on the Alamo had begun before daylight on last Sunday morning—just as had been suspected by Jim and the others who had listened from Gonzales. Two thousand five hundred soldiers had attacked on four sides at once, with cannon and scaling ladders. The Mexican bands had played the tune of Cut-Throat—no quarter! The attacks on three of the sides failed; and the attack on the fourth side, by all the soldiers together, had been driven back three times! But the soldiers were so many that the Alamo men could not shoot fast enough to keep them down. They had planted their ladders and had simply poured over the wall. Then there was terrible hand-to-hand fighting, through the buildings. Knives, pistols, and butts of guns! Captain Dickinson (who had been a lieutenant in charge of a cannon) had rushed into Mrs. Dickinson’s room in the Alamo church, and saying: “All is lost. If they spare you, save my child,” had rushed out, and she never saw him again. But he was killed. Colonel Travis was killed. Colonel Bowie was shot in his bed—the Mexican soldiers had been afraid to bayonet him. Davy Crockett had used his rifle as a club until he, too, fell. Colonel Bonham was dead. A man by the name of Walters had been driven right into Mrs. Dickinson’s room and there before her eyes had been tossed on bayonets by half a dozen Mexicans at once. Only five of the men survived the fight—and they had immediately been shot by orders of Santa Anna himself. After that General Santa Anna had all the Texan bodies collected in a pile and heaped with brush and burned. Now General Sesma was on his way with 2000 soldiers to seize Gonzales; and the remainder of the army would follow.