Look how green is the grass there by the river, and how the sun lies like gold across it!" Ned had noticed before the love of beauty that the humblest peon sometimes had, and there was a certain touch of brotherly feeling between him and this man, his jailer.
"The world is beautiful," said the boy, "and I am willing to tell you that I have no wish to leave it." "Nor I," said Fernando.

"Why are the Texans so foolish as to oppose the great Santa Anna, the most illustrious and powerful of all generals and rulers?
Did they not know that he would come and crush them, every one ?" Ned did not reply.

The peon, in repose at least, had a gentle heart, and the boy knew that Santa Anna was to him omnipotent and omniscient.

He turned his attention anew to the Alamo, that magnet of his thoughts.

It was standing quiet in the sun now.