The Quest of the Four Part 31

They had now left the town far behind and were well on the way to the Pa.s.s. Phil noticed that the fire of the Mexicans was slackening.

Evidently Santa Anna had begun to believe that it would not pay to follow up any longer a rear guard that stung so hard and so often. This certainly was the belief of Bill Breakstone.

"The pursuit is dying," he said, "not because they don't want us, but because our price is too high.

It is not right To fight at night Unless you know Right well your foe.

The darkness c.u.mbers Him with numbers; The few steal away, And are gone at day.

"My verse is a little ragged this time, Phil, but it is made in the heat of action, and it at least tells a true tale. See how their fire is sinking! The flashes stop to the right, they stop to the left, and they will soon stop in the center. It's a great night, Phil, for Marshall and his men. They were ordered to do big things, and they've filled the order twice over. And we came into it, too, Phil, don't forget that!

There, they've stopped entirely, as I told you they would!"

The firing along Santa Anna's front ceased abruptly, and as the retreat continued slowly the columns of the Mexican army were lost in the darkness. No lance heads glittered, and the bugles no longer called the men to action. Bill Breakstone had spoken truly. Santa Anna found the rear guard too tough for him to handle in the darkness, and stopped for the rest of the night. When a.s.sured of this, Marshall ordered his little force to halt, while they took stock of the wounded and dressed their hurts as best they could at such a hurried moment. Then they resumed their march for the pa.s.s, with the wagons that they had defended so well lumbering on ahead.

After the exertion of so much physical or mental energy the men rode or walked in silence. Phil was surprised to find that his hands and face were wet with perspiration, and he knew then that his face must be black with burnt gunpowder. But he felt cold presently, as the chill night wind penetrated a body relaxed after so great an effort. Then he took the blanket roll from his saddle and wrapped it around him. Breakstone and Arenberg had already done the same. Looking back, Phil saw a few lights twinkling where the Mexicans had lighted their new camp fires, but no sound came from that point. Yet, as of old, the desert wind blew, and the fine dust borne on its edge stung his face, and brought to his nostrils an odor like that of battle. Under its influence he was still ready for combat. He gloried in the achievement of this little division in which he had a part, and it gave him strength and courage for the greater struggle, by far, that was coming. Breakstone shared in his pleasure, and talked lightly in his usual fashion, but Arenberg was sober and very thoughtful.

"Well, we burnt old Santa Anna's face for him, if we did do it in the dark," said Bill, "and we can do it in daylight, too."

"But did you see his numbers?" said Arenberg. "Remember how vast was his camp, and with what a great force he attacked us at Agua Neva. Ach, I fear me for the boys who are so far from their home, the lads of Kentucky and Illinois and the others!"

"Don't be downhearted, Hans, old boy," said Breakstone with genuine feeling. "I know you have things on your mind--though I don't ask you what they are--that keep you from being cheerful, but don't forget that we've the habit of victory. Our boys are Bonaparte's soldiers in the campaign of Italy, they don't mean to be beaten, and they don't get beaten. And you can put that in your pipe, too, and smoke it, Sir Philip of the Horse Battle and the Night Retreat. Look, we're approaching the Pa.s.s. See the lights come out one by one. Don't the lights of a friend look good?"

Phil agreed with him. It was a satisfying thing to come safely out of a battle in which they had done what they had wanted to do, and return to their own army. It was now nearly morning, but the troops still marched, while the last wagons rumbled on ahead. Scouts came forward to hail them and to greet them warmly when they found that they were friends.

There was exultation, too, when they heard the news of the fine fight that the little division had given to Santa Anna. Lieutenant Washington, who was in charge of the division that commanded the road, met Middleton and Marshall a hundred yards from the mouths of his guns, and Phil heard them talking. General Taylor had not yet returned from Saltillo, where he had gone to strengthen and fortify the division at that place, as he greatly feared a flank movement of Santa Anna around the mountain to seize the town and cut him off.

Wool, meanwhile, was in command, and he listened to the reports of Marshall and Middleton, commending them highly for the splendid resistance that they had offered to overwhelming numbers. Phil gathered from their tone, although it was only confirmation of a fact that he knew already, that their little force was in desperate case, indeed.

Never before had the omens seemed so dark for an American army. For in a desolate and gloomy country, with every inhabitant an enemy and spy upon them, with an army outnumbering them five to one approaching, brave men might well despair.

It struck Phil with sudden force that the odds could be too great after all, and that he might never finish his quest. In another hour or two he might see his last sunrise. He shook himself fiercely, told himself that he was foolish and weak, and then rode toward the pa.s.s. They tethered their horses on the edge of the plateau, and at the advice of Middleton all sought sleep.

But the boy's nerves were yet keyed too highly for relaxation. His weary body was resting, but his heart still throbbed. He saw the sentinels walking back and forth. He saw the dark shapes of cannon posted on the promontories, and above them the mountains darker and yet more somber. Several fires still burned in the ravines, and the officers sat about them talking, but most of the army slept. As Phil lay on the earth he heard the wind moaning behind him as it swept up the pa.s.s, but it still touched his face with the fine impalpable dust that stung like hot sand, and that seemed to him to be an omen and a presage.

He lay a long time staring into the blackness in the direction in which Santa Anna's army now lay, where he and his comrades had fought such a good fight at midnight. He saw nothing there with his real eye, but with his mind's eye he beheld the vast preparations, the advance of the hors.e.m.e.n, and the flashing of thousands of lances in the brilliant light.

When the morning sun was showing over the ridges and peaks of the Sierra Madre, and pouring its light into the nooks and crannies of the ravines, he fell asleep.

CHAPTER XIV

BUENA VISTA

Phil did not sleep long, only an hour perhaps, and then it was Breakstone's arm on his shoulder that awakened him. He had laid down fully clothed, and he sprang at once to his feet. His nerves, too, had been so thoroughly keyed for action that every faculty responded at once to the call, and he was never more wide awake in his life. Quickly he looked about him and saw that it was a most brilliant morning. The sun was swinging upward with a splendor that he had not before seen in these gorges of the Sierra Madre. The mountains were bathed in light. The bare ridges and peaks stood out like carving, and the sunbeams danced along the black lava.

"It is Washington's Birthday, and the sun is doing him honor," said Breakstone. "But look there, Phil."

He pointed a long straight finger into the south.

"See that tiny cloud of dust," he said, "there where rock and sky meet.

I'll wager everything against nothing that it was raised by the hoofs of Minon's cavalry. Santa Anna and his whole army are surely advancing.

Watch it grow."

Phil looked with eager eyes, and he saw everything that Bill Breakstone had predicted come to pa.s.s. The cloud of dust, so small at first that he could scarcely see it, grew in height, and began to spread in a yellow line along the whole horizon. By and by it grew so high that the wind lifted the upper part of it and sent it whirling off in spirals and coils. Then through the dust they saw flashes, the steel of weapons giving back the rays of the sun like a mirror.

The American scouts and sentinels had been drawn in--no need for them now--and the whole army was crouched at the mouth of the pa.s.s. Almost every soldier could watch Santa Anna unroll before them the vast and glittering panorama of his army. But Taylor himself did not see this first appearance. He had not come from Saltillo, and Wool, the second in command, waited, troubled and uneasy.

Phil was still dismounted, and he stood with his friends on one of the promontories watching the most thrilling of all dramas unfold itself, the drama in which victory or defeat, life or death are the stakes. It was at best a bare and sterile country, and now, in the finish of the winter, the scanty vegetation itself was dead. The dust from the dead earth and the dust from the surface of the lava, ground off by iron-shod hoofs, rose in clouds that always increased, and that seemed to thicken as well as to rise and broaden. To Philip's mind occurred the likeness of a vast simoon, coming, though slowly, toward the American lines. But he knew that the heart of the simoon was a great army which considered victory absolutely sure.

"Looks as if Santa Anna had a million down there in the dust," said Breakstone. "Dost thou remember, Sir Philip of the Mountain, the Ravine, and the Lava, that pa.s.sage in Macbeth in which Birnam Wood doth come to Dunsinane? It is in my mind now because the dust of New Leon seems coming to the Pa.s.s of Angostura."

"They are at least as well hid as Macduff's army was by the wood," said Phil. "That huge cloud seems to roll over the ground, and we can't see anything in it but the flashes of light on the weapons."

They waited awhile longer in silence. The whole American army was watching. All the preparations had been made, and soldiers and officers now had little to do but bide the time. Presently the great wall of dust split apart, then a sudden shift of wind lifted it high, and whirled it over the plain. As if revealed by the sudden lifting of a curtain, the whole magnificent army of Santa Anna stood forth, stretching along a front of two miles, and more than twenty thousand strong. A deep breath, more like a murmur, rose from the soldiers in the pa.s.s. They had known long before that they were far outnumbered. The officers had never concealed from them this fact, but here was the actual and visible presence.

"Five to one," said Bill Breakstone, softly and under his breath.

"But they haven't beaten us," said Phil.

The Mexican army now halted, the cavalry of Minon in front and on the flanks, and, seen from the pa.s.s, it was certainly an array of which Mexico could be proud. Everything stained or worn was hidden. Only the splendor and glory appeared. The watchers saw the bright uniforms, the generals riding here and there, the numerous batteries, and the brilliant flags waving. Evidently they were making a camp, as if they held the rat in their trap, and would take their time about settling his fate. The sound of bugles, and then of a band playing military airs, came up, and to those in the pa.s.s these sounds were like a taunt.

Arenberg, a man of few words, uttered a low guttural sound like a growl.

"They are too sure," he said. "It iss never well to be too sure."

"That's the talk, Old Dutch," said Breakstone. "First catch your army."

They waited awhile longer, watching, and then they heard a cheer behind them in the pa.s.s. It was General Taylor, returning from Saltillo and riding hard. He emerged upon the plateau and sat there on his horse, overlooking the plain, and the great curve of Santa Anna's army. Phil was near enough to see his face, and he watched him intently.

There was nothing romantic about old Zachary Taylor. He had neither youth nor distinction of appearance. He was lined and seamed by forty years of service, mostly in the backwoods, and the white hair was thick around his temples. Nor was anything splendid about his uniform. It was dusty and stained by time and use. But within that rugged old frame beat the heart of a lion. He had not retreated when he heard the rumors that Santa Anna was coming, and he would not retreat now that Santa Anna was here with five to his one. Perhaps he recognized that in his sixty-two years of life his one moment for greatness had come, and he would make the most of it for himself and his country.

Long the general sat there on his horse, looking down into the plain, and the more important officers cl.u.s.tered in a group a short distance behind him. The brightness of the day increased. It seemed bound to make itself worthy of the great anniversary. The colors of the sunlight shifted and changed on the ridges and peaks, and the thin, luminous air seemed to bring Santa Anna's army nearer. A breeze sprang up presently, and it felt crisp and fresh on the faces of the soldiers. It also blew out the folds of a large and beautiful American flag, which had been hoisted on one of the promontories, and as the fluttering and vivid colors glowed in the sun's rays, a cry of defiance, not loud, but suppressed and rolling, pa.s.sed through the army.

"Santa Anna will not come to any picnic," said Bill Breakstone.

"He means much harm, and he will suffer much," said Arenberg.

"Our army is not frightened," said Breakstone. "I have been among the troops, and they are cheerful, even confident."

Phil saw that the officers had been watching something intently with their gla.s.ses, and now he was able to see it himself with the naked eye.

"A messenger with a white flag is coming from Santa Anna," he announced.

"Now what can he want?"

"He can want only one thing," said Breakstone; "but we'll wait and let him tell it himself."

The herald, holding his white flag aloft, rode straight toward the American army. When within three hundred yards of the American line he was met by skirmishers, who brought him forward.

"Don't you see something familiar in that figure and face, Phil?" asked Bill Breakstone.

"Yes, I know him," replied Phil. "I thought I knew him when he rode over the first ridge, but there can be no doubt now. It is our old friend de Armijo."