honor to tell you that these 'miserables' are being
attended to by the noble, the charitable Senor Doctor Worth.
As I write, he is kneeling among them. My soul adores his
humanity. I humbly kiss your hands, Senora, and the hands of
your exalted daughters.
"LOPEZ NAVARRO.

Until midnight this letter furnished the anxious, loving women with an
unceasing topic of interest. The allusion to her husband made the Senora
weep. She retired to her oratory and poured out her love and her fears
in holy salutations, in thanksgivings and entreaties.

The next morning there was an ominous lull in the atmosphere. As men
run backward to take a longer leap forward, so both armies were taking
breath for a fiercer struggle. In the Worth residencia the suspense
was becoming hourly harder to endure. The Senora and her daughters
were hardly conscious of the home life around them. In that wonderful
folk-speech which so often touches foundation truths, they were not all
there. Their nobler part had projected itself beyond its limitations. It
was really in the struggle. It mattered little to them now whether food
was cooked or not. They were neither hungry nor sleepy. Existence was
prayer and expectation.

Just before sunset Antonia saw Don Lopez coming through the garden. The
Senora, accompanied by her daughters, went to meet him. His face was
perplexed and troubled:

"General Cos has been joined by Ugartechea with three hundred men," he
said. "You will see now that the fight will be still more determined."

And before daylight broke on the morning of the 5th, the Americans
attacked the Alamo. The black flag waved above them; the city itself had
the stillness of death; but for hours the dull roar and the clamorous
tumult went on without cessation. The Senora lay upon her bed
motionless, with hands tightly locked. She had exhausted feeling, and
was passive. Antonia and Isabel wandered from window to window, hoping
to see some token which would indicate the course of events.

Nothing was visible but the ferocious flag flying out above the
desperate men fighting below it. So black! So cruel and defiant it
looked! It seemed to darken and fill the whole atmosphere around it.
And though the poor women had not dared to whisper to each other what
it said to them, they knew in their own hearts that it meant, if the
Americans failed, the instant and brutal massacre of every prisoner.

The h