Then he saw the officers rushing about, shouting to the men, striking
them with the flats of their swords and urging them on. The Mexican army
responded to the appeal, lifted itself up and continued its rush. The
fire from the Alamo seemed to Ned to increase. The fortress was a living
flame. He had not thought that men could fire so fast, but they had
three or four rifles apiece.
The silence which had replaced the shrill shouting in the town
continued. All the crash was now in front of them, and where they stood
the sound of the human voice would carry. In a dim far-away manner Ned
heard the guards talking to one another. Their words showed uneasiness.
It was not the swift triumphal rush into the Alamo that they had
expected. Great swaths had been cut through the Mexican army. Santa Anna
paled more than once when he saw his men falling so fast.
"They cannot recoil! They cannot!" he cried.
But they did. The column led by Colonel Duque, a brave man, was now at
the northern wall, and the men were rushing forward with the crowbars,
axes and scaling ladders. The Texan rifles, never more deadly, sent down
a storm of bullets upon them. A score of men fell all at once. Among
them was Duque, wounded terribly.
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