The tumult of the fight--the hurrying in and out of the city--the clashing of church bells between the booming of cannon--these things the Senora and her daughters could hear and see; but all else was for twelve days mere surmise.

But only one surmise was possible, when it was known that the little band of defiant heroes were fighting twenty, times their own number--that no help could come to them--that the Mexicans were cutting off their water, and that their provisions were getting very low.

The face of Ortiz grew constantly more gloomy, and yet there was something of triumph in his tone as he told the miserably anxious women with what desperate valor the Americans were fighting; and how fatally every one of their shots told.
On Saturday night, the fifth of March, he called Antonia aside, and said, "My Senorita, you have a great heart, and so I speak to you.

The end is close.

To-day the Mexicans succeeded in getting a large cannon within gunshot of the Alamo, just where it is weakest.