The Silent Rifleman! A tale of the Texan prairies

by Henry William Herbert

"The rancho or country dwelling-house which had been attacked was of unusually large dimensions, consisting of many buildings, with barns, stables, cattle-folds, and out-houses of every kind.

"Suddenly a pistol shot or two startled me, followed by a shout and the clashing of swords from a distant quarter of the garden.

"I was still mounted, and with the speed of light I galloped toward the spot whence those sole sounds of human life proceeded. Across the smoothly-shaven lawn and luxuriant flowerbeds I drove my charger recklessly. I came up. I was yet in time! It was a small, low building of two rooms only, the inmost of which had windows reaching to the ground, secured with jalousies, and perfectly embowered by the rich leaves and vagrant tendrils of a hundred climbing parasites.

"And this lone bower, evidently the abode of some Spanish beauty, was now the last citadel of the hapless inhabitants, mercilessly attacked and desperately defended. It was fortunate for those within it that the Texans had discovered it from the court-yard, with which it communicated only by one door in a massive wall of stone—all its windows opening into the secluded quarter of the garden, which they had not as yet discovered.

"From the court-yard, separated from the garden in which I stood by the high and massive wall I have named, the shouts and rush of armed men came clearly to my ears; and, by the English tongue, the wild oaths, and the bitter denunciating, I readily perceived that it was the band of whom I was in pursuit, and that they were forcing their way into the building, in despite of all opposition. Still it was evident to me, by the silence which prevailed in the inner room—opposite to the casements of which I stood—that this last sanctum was yet unforced, though the rapid discharge of pistol and rifle shots, and the clash of rapier and bowie-knife at the door, announced that its security was menaced, and could not certainly be maintained many minutes longer.

"There was not a second to be lost. Springing down from my horse, with one pistol in my left hand, a second in my belt, my good broad-sword in my right hand, and my wood-knife between my teeth, I drove the frail jalousies asunder with one blow of my foot, and stood the next moment in the scene of terror. And God of mercy! what a scene that was! Should I live centuries I never can forget it. It was but a second that I gazed around me; yet in that fleeting second I took in more minute details than I could recount to you in an hour.

"The chamber was the sleeping-room of some young female. Yet this spot was already the abode of death—might even be the scene of outrage worse than death.

"On the low, virgin bed was stretched—where it had been hastily deposited by the alarmed bearers—the lifeless corpse of an old man—an old Spanish gentleman. A small, round, livid hole in the centre of his forehead, surrounded by a discoloured spot, and the blood which had flowed from the back of his head and deluged all the cambric pillow-covers, showed plainly that he had fallen by the unnerring missile of a Texan rifle. I learned afterward that he was killed, in the very act of offering hospitality, by the first shot discharged that day, on his own threshold; and I do not regret that the perpetrator of the atrocious deed fell, that same day, by my hand and this good weapon.

"But to proceed. On the floor, close to the window by which I made my entrance, lay stretched an aged woman, the wife apparently of him who slept unconscious—happy that he was unconscious—of the horrors which surrounded him. She, too, had been struck down as I judged, not a moment before I entered, by a chance bullet; for she still breathed a little, although life was fast ebbing from her veins in spite of the efforts of the loveliest girl my eyes had then looked upon, who knelt beside her, seemingly unaware of the fierce uproar which was raging, nearer and nearer every moment, in the adjoining apartment; the door of which stood wide open, allowing the horrid din, the hideous imprecations, and the blue sulphurous smoke of the death-shots, which rang incessantly without, to force their way, unhindered, into that quiet chamber.