As yet the ladies had not spoken of the battle. It was won. That great fact had been as much as they could bear at first. The Senora wanted to sleep. Isabel wanted to see Luis. Only Antonia was anxious for the details, and she had been busy in preparing the respectable meal which her mother had so long craved. The apparent indifference was natural enough. The assurance of good fortune is always sufficient for the first stage of reaction from anxiety. When the most urgent personal feelings have been satisfied, then comes the demand for detail and discussion. So now, as they sat together, the Senora said:
“No one has told me anything about the battle. Were you present, Roberto?”
“I had that great honor, Maria. Lopez and Luis were with the cavalry, and Ortiz also has had some satisfaction for all his wrongs.”
“Very good! But I am impatient for the story; so is Antonia; and as for Isabel--bah! the little one is listening to another story. One must excuse her. We expected the battle on the twentieth, but no!”
“The enemy were expecting it also, and were in high spirits and perfect preparation. Houston thought it prudent to dash their enthusiasm by uncertainty and waiting. But at dawn, on the twenty-first, we heard the three taps of the drum, and seven hundred soldiers sprang to their feet as one man. Houston had been watching all night. He spoke to us with a tongue of fire and then, while we cooked and ate our breakfast, he lay down and slept. The sun came up without a cloud, and shone brightly on his face. He sprang to his feet and said to Burleson, as he saluted him: ‘The sun of Austerlitz has risen again.’
“Some one brought him a piece of cornbread and broiled beef. He sat upon the grass and ate it--or rather upon the blue hyacinths that covered the grass; they are red now. For many weeks I had not seen his countenance so bright; all traces of trouble and anxiety were gone. He called Deaf Smith--the scout of scouts--and quickly ordered him to cut down the only bridge across the bayou.
“At nine o’clock, General Cos joined Santa Anna with five hundred and forty men, and for a moment I thought we had made a mistake in not attacking the enemy before his reinforcements came up. But the knowledge that Cos was present, raised enthusiasm to the highest pitch. Our troops remembered his parole at the Alamo, and the shameful manner in which he had broken it; and there was not a man who did not long to kill him for it.