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With one hand he was clenching the hair of a dead Mexican, while with the other he had driven his knife to the haft in the bosom of his foe. The Mexican General Castrillon, to whom the prisoners had surrendered, wished to spare their lives. He led them to that part of the fort where Santa Anna stood surrounded by his staff.
Orange wrote one account of the scene, and Castrillon confided another to Prince d'Alchingen, and the above is probably as nearly as possible a faithful description of what actually passed. Robert left Hadley Lodge, and plunged through the darkness toward London. He reached Vigo Street about seven o'clock in the morning. It was Sunday, and the streets were silent.
The Marquis of Castrillon had been with her in Madrid, and also at Baron Zeuill's palace after the escape from Loadilla. "Where is Castrillon now?" asked Robert. "I understand he is in London," answered Disraeli; "at Claridge's Hotel. D'Alchingen and he are on excellent terms." "Good!" said Robert, tightening his lips. "You will find he has been invited to Hadley." "I haven't a doubt of it."
I've knowed some good men among them, but I wouldn't take the word of any of that crowd of generals, Santa Anna, Cos, Sesma, Urrea, Gaona, Castrillon, the Italian Filisola, or any of them." "There's one I'd trust," said Ned, with grateful memory, "and that's Almonte." "I've heard that he's of different stuff," said the Panther, "but it's best to keep out of their hands."
"I told them what to expect," he is reported to have said, and then, when five men were brought before him, and his own officer, General Castrillon, interceded for the Texans, he gave Castrillon a lecture for his soft-heartedness, and the prisoners were speedily put to the bayonet.
"He is the ideal of several persons," said Alchingen; "I don't know what to make of him." But at this point Castrillon displayed a maddening discretion. The Prince was glad when he took his departure, and he exhausted his stock of malice in wishing the young coxcomb to the devil.
Santa Anna did not make an immediate attack on the Alamo, for the reason that all of his troops had not yet arrived, and because he wished to give his soldiers a little rest after the long journey northward. He ordered General Castrillon to knock down some of the old houses near the river, and construct a bridge with the timbers.
Where this strange obsession was concerned, no religious or other consideration availed in the least. Bit by bit, hour by hour, the feeling had grown, deriving vigour from every source, every allusion, and every experience. The books he read, the conversations he heard, the people he met all seemed to illuminate and justify, in some mysterious way, his enmity against Castrillon.
A picked band of Mexicans under General Castrillon were gathered in a mass and were rapidly fitting together the timbers of the houses to make the narrow bridge. But the reach of the Texan rifles was great, and Davy Crockett was merely the king among so many sharpshooters. The rifles began to flash and crack. No man fired until he was sure of his aim, and no two picked the same target.
As Castrillon marched his prisoners into the presence of the President, he said: "Sir, here are six prisoners I have taken alive. How shall I dispose of them?" Santa Anna seemed much annoyed, and said, "Have I not told you before how to dispose of them? Why do you bring them to me?" Immediately several Mexicans commenced plunging their swords into the bosoms of the captives.
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