scanty remnant of the garrison mustered, in the last hope of a brave,
despair.

Quexada appeared, covered with gore and dust-his eyes bloodshot, his
cheek haggard and hollow, his locks blanched with sudden age-in the hall
of the tower, where the women, half dead with terror, were assembled.

"Food!" cried he,--"food and wine!--it may be our last banquet."

His wife threw her arms round him. "Not yet," he cried, "not yet; we
will have one embrace before we part."

"Is there, then, no hope?" said Inez, with a pale cheek, yet steady eye.

"None; unless to-morrow's dawn gild the spears of Ferdinand's army upon
yonder hills. Till morn we may hold out." As he spoke, he hastily
devoured some morsels of food, drained a huge goblet of wine, and
abruptly quitted the chamber.

At that moment, the women distinctly heard the loud shouts of the Moors;
and Leila, approaching the grated casement, could perceive the approach
of what seemed to her like moving wails.

Covered by ingenious constructions of wood and thick hides, the besiegers
advanced to the foot of the tower in comparative shelter from the burning
streams which still poured, fast and seething, from the battlements;
while, in the rear came showers of darts and cross-bolts from the more
distant Moors, protecting the work of the engineer, and piercing through
almost every loophole and crevice in the fortress.