He felt that the coil around the Alamo had
tightened. Neither he nor any one else expected aid now, and they spoke
of it freely one to another. Several who could obtain paper wrote, as
Ned had done, brief wills, which they put in the inside pockets of their
coats. Always they spoke very gently to one another, these wild spirits
of the border. The strange and softening shadow which Ned had noticed
before was deepening over them all.
Bowie was again in the hospital, having been bruised severely in a fall
from one of the walls, but his spirit was as dauntless as ever.
"The assault by the Mexicans in full force cannot be delayed much
longer," he said to Ned. "Santa Anna is impatient and energetic, and he
surely has brought up all his forces by this time."
"Do you think we can beat them off?" asked Ned.
Bowie hesitated a little, and then he replied frankly:
"I do not. We have only one hundred and seventy or eighty men to guard
the great space that we have here. But in falling we will light such a
flame that it will never go out until Texas is free."
Ned talked with him a little longer, and always Bowie spoke as if the
time were at hand when he should die for Texas.
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