ull roar of human voices--a roar like nothing
on earth but the distant roar of the ocean."

"To be sure; it was the shouting of the people. When all was still, Fray
Ignatius blessed the flag, and sprinkled over it holy water. Then Santa
Anna raised it to his lips and kissed it. Holy Maria! another shout.
Then he crossed his sword upon the flag, and cried out--'Soldados! you
are here to defend this banner, which is the emblem of your holy faith
and of your native land, against heretics, infidels and ungrateful
traitors. Do you swear to do it?' And the whole army answered 'Si! si!
juramos!' (yes, we swear.) Again he kissed the flag, and laid his sword
across it, and, to be sure, then another shout. It was a very clever
thing, I assure you, Senora, and it sent every soldier to the battery
with a great heart."

The Senora's easily touched feelings were all on fire at the
description. "I wish I could have seen the blessing of the banner,"
she said; "it is a ceremony to fill the soul. I have always wept at it.
Mark, Antonia! This confirms what I assured you of--the Mexicans make
war with a religious feeling and a true refinement. And pray, Captain
Ortiz, how will the Americans oppose these magnificent soldiers, full of
piety and patriotism?"

"They have the Alamo, and one hundred and eighty-three men in it."

"And four thousand men against them?"

"Si. May the Virgin de los Remedios [4] be their help! An urgent appeal
for assistance was sent to Fanning at Goliad. Senor Navarre, took it on
a horse fleet as the wind. You will see that on the third day he will be
smoking in his balcony, in the way which is usual to him."

"Will Fanning answer the appeal?"

"If the answer be permitted him. But Urrea may prevent. Also other
things."

Santa Anna entered San Antonio on Tuesday the twenty-third of February,
1836, and by the twenty-seventh the siege had become a very close one.
Entrenched encampments encircled the doomed men in the Alamo, and from
dawn to sunset the bombardment went on. 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 wate