suppose that this was to be our regular
prison-house; but we had scarcely been there ten minutes before a
young priest entered at the door, and said that one of our party
was to be immediately shot! While gazing at each other with looks
of eager inquiry, wondering that one was to be shot and not all,
and while each one of us was earnestly and painfully speculating
on the question which of his fellows Armijo had singled out for a
victim, the young priest raised himself on tiptoe, and looking
over our heads, pointed through the windows of our close and
narrow prison. We hurriedly turned our eyes in that direction, and
were shocked at seeing one of our men, his hands tied behind his
back, while a bandage covered his eyes, led across the plaza by a
small guard of soldiers. Who the man was we could not ascertain at
the time, but that he was one of the Texans was evident enough
from his dress. The priest said that he had first been taken
prisoner, that while attempting to escape he had been retaken, and
was now to suffer death. A horrible death it was, too! His
cowardly executioners led him to a house near the same corner of
the square we were in, not twenty yards from us, and after
heartlessly pushing him upon his knees, with his head against the
wall, six of the guard stepped back about three paces, and at the
order of the corporal _shot the poor fellow in the back_! Even at
that distance the executioners but half did their barbarous work;
for the man was only wounded, and lay writhing upon the ground in
great agony. The corporal stepped up, and with a pistol ended his
sufferings by shooting him through the heart. So close was the
pistol that the man's shirt was set on fire, and continued to burn
until it was extinguished by his blood!

'Howland's hands were tied closely behind him, and as he
approached us we could plainly see that his left ear and cheek had
been cut entirely off, and that his left arm was also much hacked,
apparently by a sword. The guard conducted their doomed prisoner
directly by us on the left, and when within three yards of us the
appearance of his scarred cheek was ghastly; but as he turned his
head to speak, a placid smile, as of heroic resignation to his
fate, lit up the other side of his face, forming a contrast almost
unearthly. We eagerly stepped forward