The Quest of the Four Part 30

It was Phil, keen of eye and watchful, who first saw a dim red tint under the far southern horizon, and he at once called Middleton's attention. The Captain halted them instantly, and his gaze followed the line of Phil's pointing finger.

"It is Santa Anna's army," he said, "and you, Phil, have the honor of locating it first. The dim band of light which you pointed out is made by their camp fires, which are many. We need not try to conceal that fact from ourselves."

"We take a nearer view, do we not, Captain?" asked Bill Breakstone.

"Of course," replied Middleton, "but be cautious, all of you. It is important to see, but it is equally important to get back to General Taylor with the tale our eyes may tell."

They rode forward again in a long and silent line. Phil's heart began to throb. The desert wind was still stinging his face with the fine impalpable dust that seemed to excite every nerve. As they advanced, the red tint on the southern horizon broadened and deepened. It was apparent that it stretched far to east and west.

"It iss a great army, and it means much harm," said Arenberg softly, more to himself than to anybody else.

Nearer and nearer rode the bold hors.e.m.e.n, stopping often to watch for the Mexican lancers who would surely be in advance of the army, beating up the country, despite the darkness, but they did not yet see any.

They rode on so far that they heard the occasional sound of a trumpet in the Mexican camp, and the fires no longer presented a solid line.

"Captain," asked Bill Breakstone, "what do you think the sound of those trumpets means at an hour like this?"

"I'm not sure, Bill," replied Middleton, "but it must signify some movement. The Mexicans, like many other people, love color and parade and sound, but they would scarcely be indulging in such things at midnight just for their own sakes. It is some plan. Santa Anna is a man of great energy and initiative. But we must discover what it is.

That is what we came for."

The advance was renewed, although they went slowly, guarding as well as they could against the least possible sound from their horses. They were now so near that they could see figures pa.s.sing before the fires, and the dark outline of tents. They also heard the hum of many voices, the tread of hoofs by hundreds, and the jingling of many, spurs and bridle bits. Phil watched almost breathless, and the desert wind still blew on his face, stirring him with its fine, impalpable powder, and adding new fire to the fire that already burned in his veins. And Phil saw that Middleton shared in this excited interest. The officer's gloved hand on his bridle rein quivered with eagerness.

"Yet a little nearer, my lads," he whispered. "We must risk everything to find out what Santa Anna is intending at so late an hour."

Screened by a narrow thicket of strange, cactuslike plants, they rode so close that they could see between the leaves and thorns directly into the camp. Here they sat on motionless horses, but Phil heard a deep "Ah!" pa.s.s between Middleton's closed teeth. The boy himself had experience and judgment enough to know now what was going forward. All this jingling of bits and spurs meant the gathering of the Mexican cavalry. The Mexican camp fires burned along a front that seemed interminable, and also scores of torches were held aloft to guide in the work that was now being done.

Phil saw the Mexican hors.e.m.e.n wheel out by hundreds, until there was a great compact body of perhaps two thousand men, gaudily dressed, well mounted, and riding splendidly. Many carried rifles or muskets, but there were at least a thousand lancers, the blades of their long weapons gleaming in the firelight. Officers in gorgeous uniforms were at their head. Presently the trumpet blew again, and the great force of cavalry under General Minon began to move.

"An advance at midnight," breathed Middleton, but Phil heard him. "And there go infantry behind them. It is an attack in force. I have it! I have it! They are going toward Agua Neva. Santa Anna thinks that our whole army is there, and probably he believes he can get in our rear and cut us off. Then he'll compress us between his vast numbers as if we were in the jaws of a vise."

Then he added, in a slightly louder tone:

"Come, my lads, we ride to Agua Neva, but we must be as careful as ever.

We know now what our task is, and we will do it."

They turned and rode away. Fortune was with them. No horse neighed.

Perhaps the sound of their hoofs might have been heard now, had it not been for the great Mexican column marching toward Agua Neva, where the rear guard under Marshall was hurrying the stores, that had been left there, northward to Taylor. Middleton swung his little troop to one side, until they were well beyond the hearing of Minon's cavalry.

"There can no longer be any doubt that they are heading for Agua Neva,"

he said, "and we must beat them there, no matter what happens. Ride, boys, ride!"

They broke into a gallop, sweeping in a long line across some open fields, riding straight for a few points of light behind which they knew was Agua Neva. They were now well ahead of the great column, and Middleton took the chance of meeting any stray band of Mexican scouts and skirmishers. They did meet such a band, but it was small, and, when the Mexican hail was answered with a shout in a foreign tongue, it quickly scattered and gave the Americans free pa.s.sage. A few shots were fired, but n.o.body in Middleton's troop was touched, and none in the other. Without breaking line the Americans rode on. The lights grew clearer and increased in number. In a few moments they clattered down on Agua Neva, and ready sentinels, rifle in hand, halted them.

"Friends!" cried Middleton. "I am Captain Middleton, with scouts from General Taylor. I must see your commander at once!"

But Marshall was there as he spoke, and Middleton exclaimed in short words, surcharged with emphasis and earnestness:

"Santa Anna is coming down upon you! We have seen his cavalry marching, and the infantry are behind them! They will soon be here! They must think that our whole army is in Agua Neva, and evidently they intend to surround it."

"All right," said Marshall calmly. "Most of the wagons are already on the way to the pa.s.s. We cover their retreat, and the General told us to hold on here as long as we could. We mean to do it. Are you with us, Captain?"

"Certainly," replied Captain Middleton briefly. "You can depend on us to the last."

"Minon's cavalry must be coming now," said Marshall. "It seems to me that I hear the tread of many hors.e.m.e.n."

"It is they," said Middleton. Marshall's men and his then fell back toward the little town. They were only a few hundred in number, but they had no idea of retreating without a fight. They were posted behind some stone walls, hedges, and a few scattered houses. The last of the wagons loaded with stores were rumbling away northward toward the Pa.s.s of Angostura.

Phil sat on his horse behind a stone wall, and all was silence along the line. The wind still blew, and stung his face with the dust of the desert. His heart throbbed and throbbed. He saw Middleton open his watch, hold it close to his face in order that he might see the hands in the moonlight, and then shut it with a little snap.

"Midnight exactly," he said, "and here they come!"

The heavy tread of many men was now in their ears, and the lances gleamed in the moonlight, as the great Mexican force swung into the open s.p.a.ce about the little town. They came on swiftly and full of ardor, but a sheet of fire blazed in their faces. The long rifles of the Americans were well aimed, despite the night--they could scarcely miss such a ma.s.s--and horses and riders went down together.

While they were still in confusion, Marshall's little force loaded and fired again. A terrible uproar ensued. Men groaned or shouted, horses neighed with fright or screamed with pain. Many of them ran riderless between the combatants. Phil heard the Mexican officers shouting orders and many strange curses. Smoke arose and permeated the night air already charged with the dust of the desert. The Mexicans fired almost at random in the darkness, but they were many, and the bullets flying in showers were bound to strike somebody. Two or three Americans dropped slain from their horses, or, on foot, died where they were struck, behind the walls. The Mexicans in a vast half circle still advanced.

Marshall and Middleton conferred briefly.

"How many men have you?" asked Marshall.

"Thirty."

"I have about fifty more cavalrymen. Take them and charge with all your might. They may think in the darkness that you have a thousand."

"Come!" said Middleton to his men, and he and the eighty rode out into the open. They paused there only an instant, because the great half circle of the Mexicans was still advancing. Phil, in the moonlight, saw the enemy very distinctly, the lances and escopetas, the tall conical hats with wide brims, and the dark faces under them. Then, at the command of Middleton, they fired their rifles and galloped straight at the foe.

Phil could never give any details of that wild moment. He was conscious of a sudden surge of the blood, the thudding of hoofs, the blades of lances almost in his face, fierce, dark eyes glaring into his own, and then they struck. The impact was accompanied by the flashing of sabers, the falling of men and horses, shouts and groans, while the smoke from the firing to the right and left of them drifted in their faces.

Phil felt a shock as his horse struck that of a Mexican lancer. The lance-blade flashed past his face, and it felt cold on his cheek as it pa.s.sed, but it did not touch him. The Mexican's horse went down before the impact of his, and he saw that the whole troop, although a few saddles were emptied, had crashed through the Mexican line. They had cut it apart like a knife through cheese. While the Mexicans were yet reeling from the shock, Middleton, a born cavalry leader, wheeled his men about, and they charged back through the Mexican line at another point. The second pa.s.sage was easier than the first, because Minon's men had been thrown into disorder, yet it was not made without wounds. Phil was slightly grazed in the side by a bullet, and a lance had torn his coat on his shoulder. If the cloth had not given way he would have been thrown from the saddle. As it was, he nearly dropped his rifle, but he managed to retain both seat and weapon.

"All right!" shouted a voice in his ear. It was that of Breakstone, who was watching over him like a father.

"All right," returned Phil confidently, and then they were back with Marshall's men, all but a dozen, who would ride no more.

"Good work," said Marshall to Middleton. "That startled them. They will ride back a little, and our riflemen, too, are doing almost as good work in the moonlight as they could in the sunlight."

The blood was pounding so heavily in Phil's ears after the double charge that he did not realize until then that the heavy firing had never ceased. The little American force reloaded and pulled the trigger so quickly that the volume of their firing gave the effect of numbers three or four times that of the real. The darkness, too, helped the illusion, and the Southerners and Westerners replied to the shouts of the Mexicans with resounding cheers of their own. An officer galloped up, and Phil heard him shout to Marshall above the crash of the firing:

"The last of the wagons is beyond the range of fire!"

"Good," said Marshall. "Now we, too, must fall back. The moment they discover how few we are they can wrap us in a coil that we cannot break.

But we'll fight them while they follow us."

The little force was drawn in skillfully, and the hors.e.m.e.n on either flank began to retire from Agua Neva. The Mexicans, urged by Minon, Torrejon, Ampudia, and Santa Anna himself, pushed hard against the retiring force, seeking either to capture or destroy it. More than once they threatened to enfold it with their long columns, but here the hors.e.m.e.n, spreading out, held them off, and the long range rifles of the Americans were weapons that the Mexicans dreaded. As on many another battlefield, the Westerners and Southerners, trained from their boyhood to marksmanship, fired with terrible accuracy. The moonlight, now that their eyes had grown used to it, was enough for them. Their firing, as the slow retreat northward toward the Pa.s.s of Angostura went on, never ceased, and their path was marked by a long trail of their fallen foes.

Santa Anna and his generals sought in vain to flank them, but the darkness was against the greater force. It was not easy to combine and make use of numbers when only moonlight served. Regiments were likely to fire into one another, but the small compact body of the Americans kept easily in touch, and they retreated practically in one great hollow square blazing with fire on every side. "Hold on as long as you can,"

Taylor had said to Marshall, but Marshall, in the face of twenty to one, held on longer than any one had dreamed.

Santa Anna had expected to get his great cavalry force in the rear of Taylor at Agua Neva, but at midnight, finding Taylor not there and only a small detachment left, he had hoped to capture or destroy that in a few minutes. Instead, half his army was fighting a most desperate rear guard action with a few hundred men, and every second Marshall saved was precious to the commander back there at the Pa.s.s of Angostura.

Phil was grazed by another bullet, and his horse was stung once.

Arenberg was slightly wounded, but Breakstone was untouched, and the three still kept close together. The boy could not take note of the pa.s.sage of time. It seemed to him that they had been fighting for hours as they gave way slowly before the huge ma.s.s of the Mexican army. Great clouds of smoke from the firing had turned the moonlight to a darker quality. Now and then it drifted in such quant.i.ties that the moon was wholly obscured, and then it was to the advantage of the Americans, who could fire from their hollow square in every direction, and be sure that they hit no friend.