Inez Part 31

"Dr. Bryant, I am alone in the wide, wide world--there are none to protect--none to care for me now! My father sleeps by Manuel's side, in the churchyard, and I am the last of my house. The name of De Garcia, once so proud and honored, will become a byword for desolation and misery! I have said cursed was the hour of my birth! and I now say blessed is the hour of my last sleep! You see me here from necessity, not choice, for all places would be alike to me now; but I have been driven from my lonely hearth--I dared not stay, I flew to this dreary waste for peace--for protection! There is no rest, no peace for me, Not one is left to whom I can say, guard and keep me from harm! Alone, friendless, in this wide, bitter world!"

"Your language is strangely ambiguous, Inez! Can you not explicitly declare what danger threatens, and believe that all I can do to avert evil will gladly be done?"

"Dr. Bryant, the Padre is my most inveterate enemy! Is not this sufficient to account for my presence here?"

"Unfortunate girl! how have you incurred that man's hatred?"

"It is a long tale, and needless to repeat: enough, that he plotted my ruin--that the strong, silent walls of a far-off convent was my destination. And why?--That my flocks and lands might enrich his precious church. You look wonderingly upon me; strange language, this, I think you say, for a lamb of his flock. How dare you speak so irreverently of the holy man, consecrated priest of Rome as he is? Dr.

Bryant, I am no Catholic, nor have I been since you have known me.

It was my policy to appear pa.s.sive. I attended ma.s.s, and sought the confessional, and all the while cursed him in my heart. I watched him, and saved your people from destruction. Would you know how? I heard whispered promises to meet at dead of night. I followed; I saw the meeting between an emissary of Santa Anna and my G.o.dly Padre. At imminent risk I listened to their plot. You were to be kept in ignorance of the powerful force hurrying on to destroy you. Santa Anna was to burst suddenly upon the town, and, ere you could receive reinforcements, capture the Alamo at a blow. Once in his possession, more than one of your people were to be handed over to the tender mercies of my holy confessor. I warned you of your danger, and happily you heeded the signs of the time; else you, too, would now molder beneath the walls of the Alamo. His prey escaped him, and with redoubled eagerness he sought to consummate my destruction. I was made a prisoner in my own home, ere the sod settled on my father's grave!

I fled in the midnight hour, and you see me here! Dr. Bryant, I well-nigh cut short the knotted thread of my life; but one thing saved me, else my body would even now whirl along the channel of the river.

When I parted from the blue-eyed, sainted Mary, she gave me this book, and asked me not only to read but follow its teachings. She clasped my hand, and told me to remember G.o.d, and the eternity which awaited me, and the judgment of that other, final world. Oh! if there be a heaven and a purgatory! a G.o.d and a judge! if I sink to perdition, one alone is to blame. He told me he had power to forgive my sins; that the more completely I obeyed him on earth, the more blessed I should be in heaven. Yet I have heard him lie, and seen him set aside the rules of humanity and the laws of G.o.d! Mary's Bible tells me 'to keep holy the Sabbath day.' Yet, from my childhood, I have seen our Priests at ma.s.s on Sabbath morning, and at monte and c.o.c.k-fights on the evening of the same day! And I have seen them take from the widow, as the burial-fee of her husband, the last cow she possessed. I saw these things, and I said, there is no G.o.d, or he would not suffer such as these to minister as his chosen servants upon the earth. I said in my heart, purgatory is but a lie made to keep pace with their marvelous legends and frequent miracles! There is not a purgatory, or they would fear the retribution in store for them. I had none to teach me aright.

I mocked at the thought of religion. I said there is none on the earth--it is merely a system of gain, and all that const.i.tutes the difference is, that some are by nature more of devils, and others gifted with milder hearts. But I saw Mary--pure angel that she is--I saw her with the sick and the dying: she railed not at our priest, as he at her. She carried her Bible to the bed of death, and told them to look to G.o.d for themselves. She bade them leave off saint-wors.h.i.+p, and cling to Jesus as their only Mediator. Peace followed her steps, and much good she would have done, but my Padre interfered, peremptorily ordered all good Papists to shun her as they would an incarnate demon, and frightened many into submission with his marvelous tales and threats of purgatory. I said to myself, if there be truth in G.o.d and religion, this Mary walketh in the right path, for like an angel of mercy and light she ever seems. She was the hope, the joy, the blessing of all who knew her. Oh! I will come to you, Mary, and learn of you, and die near, that you may be with me in the hour of rest."

Inez sank on the ground, and burying her face in her arms, rocked herself to and fro. Dr. Bryant had listened to her rambling, incoherent language, like one in a dream, till the name of Mary pa.s.sed her lips, and then his head sank upon his chest, and he groaned in the anguish of his tortured spirit.

Inez held in one hand the small Bible given at parting; his eye fell upon it, and he stepped nearer to her:

"Inez, the Mary you have loved rests no longer on earth. She has pa.s.sed away, and dwells in heaven. She was true to G.o.d, and his holy law, and great is her reward. Scarce a week since I laid her in her quiet grave, yet not there either, but yielded her up to the arms of G.o.d!"

He paused, for his deep tone faltered. Inez rose quickly to her feet as he spoke, and gazed vacantly on his face.

"Mary gone forever! Mary in heaven! Shall I never again see her, sweet angel of truth and purity, with her soft blue eyes, so full of holy love and gentleness? Oh, Mary, thou art blessed! thou art at rest!

When shall I, too, find eternal rest? Ere long, Mary, I, too, will sleep the last, unbroken, dreamless sleep!"

Dr. Bryant laid his hand on the sacred volume, and would have drawn it from her clasp; but tightening her hold, she shook her head, and mournfully exclaimed:

"No, no; it is mine! When I die, it shall be my pillow; while I live, it rests near my heart, and in the churchyard I will not let it go.

You have no right to claim it: you have not loved her as I have done.

She loved you, yet you heeded not the jewel that might have, even now, been your own!"

"Inez, I have loved--I do love her, as none other can! Too late I found my love returned. Had G.o.d spared her to me, she would have been my wife. Oh, Mary, Mary! my own cherished one! May thy spirit hover round me now, as in life thou wert my guardian angel! Inez, I, too, have suffered, and severely. I have little to antic.i.p.ate in life, yet I am not desponding as you; my faith in G.o.d and his unchanging goodness is unshaken. Let us both so live that we may join my Mary in glory."

Inez answered not, but pa.s.sed her hand wearily across her brow.

"Inez, which will you do? retain your disguise, and go with me, or return to your old home? I am not going to Austin, but to Goliad, to join the Texans there; will you accompany me, and claim the protection of our banner? All that a brother could, I will gladly do; with me you are safe, at least for a time; and when the storm of war has pa.s.sed, I doubt not your home will again be happy."

"I know you, Dr. Bryant, and I know that you are true to G.o.d, and keep his law. I will go with you to Goliad, and there we will decide what I must do. Oh! I am weary and sick at heart, and not long will I burden you."

She stooped, and picking up the hat, replaced it on her head, and turned toward her horse.

Frank kindly took her hand.

"Inez, do not despond. I trust all may yet be well with you, and rest a.s.sured it gives me heartfelt pleasure to be enabled to render you a service, and take you to a place of safety. But your hand is hot--burning: it is feverish excitement from which you suffer. When we have reached Goliad, and you can rest, I doubt not your strength and spirits will return; meantime take one of my pistols, it is loaded, and, in case of danger, will render good service."

She took the proffered weapon, and having secured it in the girdle, turned to mount her horse. Frank a.s.sisted in arranging the accouterments, and, springing upon his own recruited steed, they turned their faces southward.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

"Our bosoms we'll bare to the glorious strife, And our oath is recorded on high, To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life, Or crushed in its ruins to die.

And leaving in battle no blot on his name, Look proudly to heaven, from the death-bed of fame."

CAMPBELL.

A b.l.o.o.d.y seal was set upon thee, oh! Goliad. A gory banner bound around thy name; and centuries shall slowly roll ere thou art blotted from the memory of man. The annals of the dim and darkened past afford no parallel for the inhuman deed, so calmly, so deliberately committed within thy precincts; and the demon perpetrator escaped unpunished!

A perfect appreciation of the spirit of the text--"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; I will repay," alone can sanction the apathy manifested by one to whom the world looked as the avenger of his murdered countrymen.

Rumors of the fall of the Alamo, the overwhelming force of Santa Anna, and his own imminent danger, had reached Colonel Fanning. In vain he entreated reinforcements, in vain urged the risk hourly incurred. The Texan councils bade him save himself by flight. "Retreat, fly from the post committed to my keeping!" The words sounded like a knell on the ear of the n.o.ble man to whom they were addressed. He groaned in the anguish of his spirit, "I will not leave this fortress--Travis fell defending with his latest breath the Alamo! Oh, Crocket! Bowie! can I do better than follow thy example, and give my life in this true cause?"

An untimely death--the separation and misery of his darling family, weighed not an atom! "Patria infelici fidelis!" was ever his motto, and unfaltering was his own step. There came a messenger from headquarters--"Abandon Goliad, and retreat!"

"Colonel, you will not sound a retreat?" and Dr. Bryant laid his hand upon his commander's arm.

"My G.o.d! it is a fearful thing to decide the destinies of four hundred brave men! Bryant, if we remain it is certain death--the tragedy of San Antonio will be reacted in our case!"

"Colonel, you must remember the old saw--'He that fights and runs away, lives to fight another day,'" said a timeworn ranger, settling his collar with perfect nonchalance.

"Why, Furgeson, do you counsel flight? My brave comrade, bethink yourself!"

"Well, Colonel, it is something strange for me to say run; but when I do say it, I am in earnest. The most hot-headed fellow in our company dare not say I lack courage: you know as well as I do what they call me--'Bulldog Furgeson,' but who feels like fighting the grand devil himself, and his legion of imps to boot? I am a lone man and have nothing in particular to live for, it's true; but it is some object with me to do the most service I can for our Lone blessed Star! I should like a game with old 'Santy' in a clear ring, and fair play; but I am thinking we had best take French leave of this place, and join the main body where we can fight with some chance ahead. Now that's my opinion, but if you don't believe that doctrine, and want to take the 'old bull right by the horns,' I say let's at him."

A smile pa.s.sed over the face of his commander.

"Thank you, Furgeson, and rest a.s.sured I shall not doubt your stanch support in time of need."

Again the broad brow contracted, and, linking his arm in that of Dr.

Bryant, he paced to and fro, engrossed in earnest, anxious thought.

Pausing at length, he pointed to his troops, awaiting in silence his commands.

"Bryant, at least half those brave fellows have wives and children, and bright homes, beckoning them away, yet see them calmly trust to me in this trying hour. Should my order go forth to man the fort, and meet the worst, I know full well not a murmur would be heard. Still it is equally certain that, if we brave the conflict, not one of us shall survive to tell the tale. What am I to do? Make this a second Thermopylae?"

"Peculiarly painful, I know full well, is the situation in which you are placed. Yet one strong argument remains to be urged. Colonel, if we desert Goliad, and sound a retreat, we cannot escape. The force of the enemy is too powerful, their movements too rapid, to allow us to retire to a place of safety without a desperate encounter. Is it not better policy to remain here, and meet the shock?"

"If we fight at all it must be at fearful odds; four hundred to six thousand! Yet, should I follow the dictates of my own heart, I would not give one inch!--no, not one! Dearly they should buy the ground on which I stand!"

"Colonel, shall we not meet them on this spot and lay down our lives, as did our brethren of the Alamo?"

"No, by Jove! I shall have to leave, whether I will or not!" And crumpling the note of orders, he tossed it to the ground, and pressed it with his heel.

He stepped forth, and drawing his military cap about his eyes, folded his arms upon his broad chest, and addressed his troops: