Page:For the Liberty of Texas.djvu/309

Rh up their swords, handles to the front, as a token of surrender.

"It's too late to surrender!" cried a number of Texans. "Remember the Alamo!" Meaning, "Remember how you butchered our soldiers!"

"Me no Alamo! Me no Alamo!" shrieked many of the Mexicans. "Good Americano! Me no Alamo!" They wished the Texans to understand that they were not responsible for the cold-blooded slaughter at the mission. At last Colonel Almonte gathered together nearly four hundred of the defeated and made a formal surrender, and to the everlasting honour of Texas be it said that these prisoners were not maltreated.

The night that followed was one never to be forgotten. Santa Anna had escaped, and while some ran around crying, "Santa Anna! Hunt down Santa Anna!" others procured from the Mexicans' store a number of candles, which they lit, and then formed a grand procession through the live-oak grove and across the prairie, dancing and yelling like a lot of Indians. The victory had been so long delayed that now, when it was really theirs, they were intoxicated with joy.

The contest had been a remarkable one in many ways. The Texan army numbered exactly 743, of whom eight were killed and thirty wounded. Santa Anna's force numbered over sixteen hundred, and of these, 630 were killed, two hundred