Page:For the Liberty of Texas.djvu/267

Rh them Mexican officers, too. Well, he sha'n't have your pap's land, and that's all there is about it."

So the talk ran on, man and boy hardly knowing how to put in their time when not on guard duty. At first the mission had proved of much interest, with its quaint carvings and curious decorations, but now even this was beginning to pall.

On Saturday Santa Anna called a counsel of war, and at this it was decided that a general assault should be made upon the Alamo at day-break on Sunday. The assaulting troops numbered twenty-five hundred against a pitiful one hundred and eighty-two Texans!—and were divided into four columns, the first of which was under the command of General Cos, the same Mexican who had surrendered to the Texans but a short time before.

Each column of the attacking party was furnished with ropes, scaling-ladders, crowbars, and axes, as well as with their ordinary military weapons. As the soldiers advanced, the cavalry were drawn up in a grand circle around the Alamo, so that no Texans might escape. In the mean time the blood-red flag of "no quarter" was still flying high from the Mexican camp, and now the band struck up the Spanish quickstep, "Deguelo," or "Cut-throat," as an inspiration to the soldiers to have no mercy on the rebels!