"A remarkable siege, you say, Señor?" he said. "It is, in truth; never was such a siege since the world began! And ’tis not the first time the French pack of wolves has come to eat us. Last year, by the favour of Our Lady of the Pillar, we escaped their greedy jaws; and now also again they shall rue the day they came a-hunting. For six weeks we have withstood them; ’tis six weeks since they began to throw their bombs and balls into our midst. Aha! and on the second day after, they sent a man to summon us to surrender. Surrender! Little they knew Don José Palafox, little they knew the hearts of our people—of Tio Jorge here, and Tio Marin, of the padres Don Basilio and Santiago Sass and Consolacion; aye, and of our noble ladies and of our poor folks such as I myself. Surrender! Why, our people well-nigh tore the French messenger in pieces! We knew they were coming to invest us; did they think we should open our gates or that our walls would fall flat as the walls of Jericho? Por Dios!" He uttered a scornful guffaw, and shouts of approval broke from the crowd. "No, no. We had warning; the people from the countryside came flocking in—workers in olive groves and vineyards, potters from the villages, swineherds and muleteers—and Don José gave them each his task, and with our own people they toiled night and day to make our city strong. Men and women and children, sixty thousand of us, we wrought upon the ramparts. Some carried earth in baskets, others plied the spade, others went into the outskirts with picks and axes, and levelled houses and orchards until, for half a mile round, the country was as bare as my table here, a level waste on which no enemy could find a wall or tree to shelter him. Thus we strengthened our defences, building bastions and raising mounds, till the whole city was encircled with strong ramparts from the Ebro to the Huerba. "And all this time our people were gathering food—great stores of corn and maize, oil and fish; and some were making powder and bullets, and others were building barriers across the streets with timber and sand-bags, so that if the accursed French did break through our walls we could still fight from street to street, as you have seen to-day, Señor." "Yes, but they are gaining ground; how can we hold out longer, Jorge Arcos?" said a voice in the crowd. Arcos glared around and smote upon the table.