The men talked further. Ned gathered from them that the whole force of Santa Anna was now present. Some
of his officers wanted him to wait for siege artillery of the heaviest caliber that would batter down the walls of the Alamo, but the dictator himself was impatient for the assault. It would certainly take place the next morning.
"And why is the young señor here?" asked Fernando. "The order has been issued that no Texan shall be spared, and do you not see the red flag waving there close by us?"
Ned looked up. The red flag now flaunted its folds very near to him. He could not repress a shiver.
"I am here," he replied, "because some one who has power has told General Santa Anna that I am not to be put to death."
"It is well for you, then," said Fernando, "that you have a friend of such weight. It is a pity to die when one is so young and so straight and strong as you. Ah, my young señor, the world is beautiful. Look how green is the grass there by the river, and how the sun lies like gold across it!"
Ned had noticed before the love of beauty that the humblest peon sometimes had, and there was a certain touch of brotherly feeling between him and this man, his jailer.
"The world is beautiful," said the boy, "and I am willing to tell you that I have no wish to leave it."
"Nor I," said Fernando. "Why are the Texans so foolish as to oppose the great Santa Anna, the most illustrious and powerful of all generals and rulers? Did they not know that he would come and crush them, every one?"
Ned did not reply. The peon, in repose at least, had a gentle heart, and the boy knew that Santa Anna was to him omnipotent and omniscient. He turned his attention anew to the Alamo, that magnet of his thoughts. It was