None dared to utter publicly any words save words of defiance and stubborn resolution.

Even in that extremity the general cry was "No surrender." And there were not wanting voices which, in low tones, added, "First the horses and hides; and then the prisoners; and then each other." It was afterwards related, half in jest, yet not without a horrible mixture of earnest, that a corpulent citizen, whose bulk presented a strange contrast to the skeletons which surrounded him, thought it expedient to conceal himself from the numerous eyes which followed him with cannibal looks whenever he appeared in the streets, [251] It was no slight aggravation of the sufferings of the garrison that all this time the English ships were seen far off in Lough Foyle.
Communication between the fleet and the city was almost impossible.
One diver who had attempted to pass the boom was drowned.

Another was hanged.

The language of signals was hardly intelligible.

On the thirteenth of July, however, a piece of paper sewed up in a cloth button came to Walker's hands.