The Texan Star: The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty

by Joseph A. Altsheler

The character of the night did not change as time trailed its slow length away. One solid black cloud covered the sky from horizon to horizon. The wind out of the southwest never ceased to moan, and the cold rain blew steadily upon the walls and roof of the ruined convent. It was not a night when either Texans or Mexicans would wish to be abroad, and, as the chill grew sharper and more penetrating, Ned wrapped one of his blankets about his shoulders.

As the night advanced, Ned's sense of oppression deepened. He felt once more as he had felt at the pyramid, that he was among old dead things. Ghosts could walk here as truly as they could walk on the banks of the Teotihuacan. Sometimes as the great cloud lightened the least bit he caught glimpses of the grass and weeds that grew between him and the broken adobe wall which was about fifteen yards away.

Only an hour more, and the second watch would come on. Ned began to think of his place on the floor, and of the deep and dreamless sleep that he knew would be his. Then he was attracted by a glimpse of the adobe wall. It seemed to him that he had seen a projection, where there was none before. He looked a second time, and he did not see it. Fancy played strange tricks at midnight in the enemy's country, and in the desolate silence.

Ned shook himself. Although a vivid imagination might be excusable at such a time even in a man, a veteran of many campaigns, he was essentially an uncompromising realist, and he wished to see facts exactly as they were. The work upon which he was engaged allowed no time for the breeding of fancy.

He looked again and there were two projections where he had seen only one before. They resembled knobs on the adobe wall, rising perhaps half a foot above it, and the sight troubled Ned. Was fancy to prove too strong, when he had drilled himself so long to see the real? Was he to be played with by the imagination, as if he had no will of his own?

He thought once of speaking to the sentinels at the other doors, but he could not compel himself to do it. They would laugh at him, and it is a bitter thing to be laughed at. So he kept his watch, and while he looked the projections appeared, disappeared and appeared once more.

He could stand it no longer. Putting his rifle under his blanket in order to keep the weapon dry he stepped out of doors, but flattened himself against the wall of the convent. The rain and wind whipped him unmercifully, and the cold ran through him, but he was resolved to see what was happening by the adobe wall. The projections were there and they had increased to four. They did not go away.

Ned was now convinced that it was not fancy. His mind had obeyed his will, and he was the true realist, no victim of the imagination. He was about to kneel down in the grass, and crawl toward the wall, when something caused him to change his mind. One of the projections suddenly extended a full yard above the wall, and resolved itself into the shape of a man. But what a man! The body from the waist up was naked, and above it rose a head crested with long hair, black and coarse. Other heads and bodies also savage and naked rose up beside it on the wall. Ned knew in an instant and springing back within the convent he cried:

"Comanches! Comanches! Up men, up!"

At the same moment, acting on impulse, he seized the rope that hung by the wall and pulled it hard, fast and often. Above in the cupola the great bronze bell boomed forth a tremendous solemn note that rose far over the moaning of the wind. From the adobe wall came a fierce yell, a sinister cry that swelled until it became a high and piercing volume of sound, and then died away in a menacing note like the howl of wolves. But Ned, impulse still his master, never ceased to pull the bell.