Remember the Alamo [105]
every one
attach a certain tender value to the hours never to come back
to the experiences never to be repeated.
The Senora was gay as a child; Isabel shared and accentuated
her enthusiasms; Luis was expressing his happiness in a
variety of songs; now glorifying his love in some pretty
romance or serenade, again musically assuring liberty, or
Texas, that he would be delighted at any moment to lay down
his life for their sakes. Antonia was quite as much excited
in her own way, which was naturally a much quieter way; and
Lopez sat under a great pecan-tree, smoking his cigarito with
placid smiles and admiring glances at every one.
As the sun set, the full moon rose as it rises nowhere but
over Texan or Asian plains; golden, glorious, seeming to fill
the whole heaven and the whole earth with an unspeakable
radiance; softly glowing, exquisitely, magically beautifying.
The commonest thing under it was transfigured into something
lovely, fantastic, fairylike. And the dullest souls swelled
and rose like the tides under its influence.
Antonia took from their stores the best they had, and a
luxurious supper was spread upon the grass. The meal might
have been one of ten courses, it occupied so long; it provoked
so much mirth, such a rippling stream of reminiscence;
finally, such a sweetly solemn retrospect of the sorrows and
mercies and triumphs of the campaign they had shared together.
This latter feeling soon dominated all others.
The delicious light, the sensuous atmosphere, the white
turrets and towers of the city, shining on the horizon like
some mystical, heavenly city in dreams--the murmur of its far-
off life, more audible to the spiritual than the natural
ears--the dark figures of the camp servants, lying in groups
or quietly shuffling their cards, were all elements conducive
to a grave yet happy seriousness.
No one intended to sleep. They were to rest in the moonlight
until the hour of eleven, and then make their last stage.
This night they instinctively kept close together. The Senora
had mentally reached that point where it was not unpleasant to
talk over troubles, and to amplify especially her own share of
them.
"But, Holy Maria!" she said; "how unnecessary are such
sorrows! I am never, in the least, any better for them. When
the Divine Majesty condescends to give me the sunshine of
prosperity, I am always exceedingly religious. On the
contrary when I am in sorrow, I do not feel inclined to pray.
That is precisely natural. Can the blessed Mother expect
thanks, when she gives her children only suffering and tears?"
"God gives us whatever is best for us, dear mother."
"Speak, when you have learned wisdom, Antonia. I shall always
believe that trouble comes from the devil; indeed, Fray
Ignatius once told me of a holy man that had one grief upon
the heels of the other, and it was the devil who was sent with
all of them. I have myself no doubt that he opened the gates
of hell for Santa Anna to return to earth and do a little work
for him."
"This thought makes me tremble," said Lopez; "souls that have
become angelic, can become evil. The degraded seraphim, whom
we call the devil, was once the companion of archangels, and
stood with Michael, and Raphael, and Gabriel, in the presence
of the Holy One. Is there sin in heaven? Can we be
tempted even there?"
The inquiry went in different ways to each heart, but no one
answered it. There were even a few moments of constrained,
conscious silence, which Luis happily ended, by chanting
softly a verse from the hymn of the Three Angels:
"'WHO LIKE THE LORD?' thunders Michael the Chief.
Raphael, `THE CURE OF GOD,' bringeth relief,
And, as at Nazareth, prophet of peace,
Gabriel, `THE LIGHT OF GOD,' bringeth release."
The noble syllables floated outward and upward, and Antonia
and Lopez softly intoned the last line together, letting them
fall slowly and softly into the sensitive atmosphere.
"And as for trouble coming from the devil,"
attach a certain tender value to the hours never to come back
to the experiences never to be repeated.
The Senora was gay as a child; Isabel shared and accentuated
her enthusiasms; Luis was expressing his happiness in a
variety of songs; now glorifying his love in some pretty
romance or serenade, again musically assuring liberty, or
Texas, that he would be delighted at any moment to lay down
his life for their sakes. Antonia was quite as much excited
in her own way, which was naturally a much quieter way; and
Lopez sat under a great pecan-tree, smoking his cigarito with
placid smiles and admiring glances at every one.
As the sun set, the full moon rose as it rises nowhere but
over Texan or Asian plains; golden, glorious, seeming to fill
the whole heaven and the whole earth with an unspeakable
radiance; softly glowing, exquisitely, magically beautifying.
The commonest thing under it was transfigured into something
lovely, fantastic, fairylike. And the dullest souls swelled
and rose like the tides under its influence.
Antonia took from their stores the best they had, and a
luxurious supper was spread upon the grass. The meal might
have been one of ten courses, it occupied so long; it provoked
so much mirth, such a rippling stream of reminiscence;
finally, such a sweetly solemn retrospect of the sorrows and
mercies and triumphs of the campaign they had shared together.
This latter feeling soon dominated all others.
The delicious light, the sensuous atmosphere, the white
turrets and towers of the city, shining on the horizon like
some mystical, heavenly city in dreams--the murmur of its far-
off life, more audible to the spiritual than the natural
ears--the dark figures of the camp servants, lying in groups
or quietly shuffling their cards, were all elements conducive
to a grave yet happy seriousness.
No one intended to sleep. They were to rest in the moonlight
until the hour of eleven, and then make their last stage.
This night they instinctively kept close together. The Senora
had mentally reached that point where it was not unpleasant to
talk over troubles, and to amplify especially her own share of
them.
"But, Holy Maria!" she said; "how unnecessary are such
sorrows! I am never, in the least, any better for them. When
the Divine Majesty condescends to give me the sunshine of
prosperity, I am always exceedingly religious. On the
contrary when I am in sorrow, I do not feel inclined to pray.
That is precisely natural. Can the blessed Mother expect
thanks, when she gives her children only suffering and tears?"
"God gives us whatever is best for us, dear mother."
"Speak, when you have learned wisdom, Antonia. I shall always
believe that trouble comes from the devil; indeed, Fray
Ignatius once told me of a holy man that had one grief upon
the heels of the other, and it was the devil who was sent with
all of them. I have myself no doubt that he opened the gates
of hell for Santa Anna to return to earth and do a little work
for him."
"This thought makes me tremble," said Lopez; "souls that have
become angelic, can become evil. The degraded seraphim, whom
we call the devil, was once the companion of archangels, and
stood with Michael, and Raphael, and Gabriel, in the presence
of the Holy One. Is there sin in heaven? Can we be
tempted even there?"
The inquiry went in different ways to each heart, but no one
answered it. There were even a few moments of constrained,
conscious silence, which Luis happily ended, by chanting
softly a verse from the hymn of the Three Angels:
"'WHO LIKE THE LORD?' thunders Michael the Chief.
Raphael, `THE CURE OF GOD,' bringeth relief,
And, as at Nazareth, prophet of peace,
Gabriel, `THE LIGHT OF GOD,' bringeth release."
The noble syllables floated outward and upward, and Antonia
and Lopez softly intoned the last line together, letting them
fall slowly and softly into the sensitive atmosphere.
"And as for trouble coming from the devil,"