Love touched the spiritual element
in each soul, and received its earnest of immortality. And lovers,
who have had such experiences together, need never fear that chance
or change of life can separate them.
"John," said the Bishop, as they sat in the moonlight, "it is my turn
now. I want to hear about Texas and about Houston. Where did you meet
him?"
"I met him falling back from the Colorado. I crossed the Buffalo Bayou
at Vance's Bridge, just above San Jacinto, and rode west. Twenty miles
away I met the women and children of the western settlements, and they
told me that Houston was a little farther on, interposing himself and
his seven hundred men between the Mexican army and them. O, how my
heart bled for them! They were footsore, hungry, and exhausted. Many
of the women were carrying sick children. The whole country behind
them had been depopulated, and their only hope was to reach the eastern
settlements on the Trinity before Santa Anna's army overtook them.
I could do nothing to help them, and I hasted onward to join the
defending party. I came up to it on the evening of the 20th of April--a
desperate handful of men--chased from their homes by an overpowering
foe, and quite aware that not only themselves, but their wives and
children, were doomed by Santa Anna to an exterminating massacre.
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