“Inez, do not despond.  I trust all may yet be well with you, and rest assured it gives me heartfelt pleasure to be enabled to render you a service, and take you to a place of safety.  But your hand is hot—­burning:  it is feverish excitement from which you suffer.  When we have reached Goliad, and you can rest, I doubt not your strength and spirits will return; meantime take one of my pistols, it is loaded, and, in case of danger, will render good service.”

She took the proffered weapon, and having secured it in the girdle, turned to mount her horse.  Frank assisted in arranging the accouterments, and, springing upon his own recruited steed, they turned their faces southward.

CHAPTER XXX.

“Our bosoms we’ll bare to the glorious strife,
And our oath is recorded on high,
To prevail in the cause that is dearer than life,
Or crushed in its ruins to die.

* * * * *

And leaving in battle no blot on his name,
Look proudly to heaven, from the death-bed of fame.”

CAMPBELL.

A bloody seal was set upon thee, oh!  Goliad.  A gory banner bound around thy name; and centuries shall slowly roll ere thou art blotted from the memory of man.  The annals of the dim and darkened past afford no parallel for the inhuman deed, so calmly, so deliberately committed within thy precincts; and the demon perpetrator escaped unpunished!  A perfect appreciation of the spirit of the text—­“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; I will repay,” alone can sanction the apathy manifested by one to whom the world looked as the avenger of his murdered countrymen.

Rumors of the fall of the Alamo, the overwhelming force of Santa Anna, and his own imminent danger, had reached Colonel Fanning.  In vain he entreated reinforcements, in vain urged the risk hourly incurred.  The Texan councils bade him save himself by flight.  “Retreat, fly from the post committed to my keeping!” The words sounded like a knell on the ear of the noble man to whom they were addressed.  He groaned in the anguish of his spirit, “I will not leave this fortress—­Travis fell defending with his latest breath the Alamo!  Oh, Crocket!  Bowie! can I do better than follow thy example, and give my life in this true cause?”

An untimely death—­the separation and misery of his darling family, weighed not an atom!  “Patria infelici fidelis!” was ever his motto, and unfaltering was his own step.  There came a messenger from headquarters—­“Abandon Goliad, and retreat!”

“Colonel, you will not sound a retreat?” and Dr. Bryant laid his hand upon his commander’s arm.

“My God! it is a fearful thing to decide the destinies of four hundred brave men!  Bryant, if we remain it is certain death—­the tragedy of San Antonio will be reacted in our case!”

“Colonel, you must remember the old saw—­’He that fights and runs away, lives to fight another day,’” said a timeworn ranger, settling his collar with perfect nonchalance.