Shortly after midnight, the firing grew slower and an hour later ceased altogether.  Morning dawned slowly, and the flag still floated over the badly battered fort.  A sullen, gloomy silence had fallen over the officers and men.  They watched the enemy, who at daylight began to warp the ship in a little nearer, that her guns might be more effective.  Fernando was silent and his brow dark.  There seemed but one thing possible and that was defeat.  Reinforcements need not be expected.

The Xenophon came a little nearer to shore, then let go her anchors again and lay broadside to the fort.  It was quite evident that she was afraid to come too close, lest some blundering shot would strike her.  All of a sudden, a sheet of flame and cloud of smoke from her side concealed the ship from view, and balls once more rained about the fort.  The fire this day was more destructive than on the preceding.  One house within the enclosure was completely battered down.  The church which had been converted into a hospital was set on fire.  Fernando discovered it in flames and ran thither to hurry out the wounded.  Entering the burning building, through which a shell went screaming, he was horror-stricken and amazed to find Morgianna at one of the bunks, binding up the wounds of a sufferer.

“Morgianna, Morgianna!” he cried, “why do you risk your life here?”

“There is suffering and death here!” she answered.  “Am I better than those who risk their lives for me?”

“Morgianna, you must not, yours is no common life—­” he began.  In the excitement of the moment he almost forgot himself.  She was about to answer, when he said, “Noble woman! do not, for Heaven’s sake, run needless danger.”

They hurried the wounded from the burning building.  Another house, lower down the hill, was also on fire.  It was so near to the great gun, that the heat almost blistered the men who worked it, and for awhile their magazine was in great peril.

The soldiers did all in their power to extinguish the flames; but both church and house burned to the ground.

Night came once more, and the Americans were reduced to the sorest straits.  Soon after dark, the cannonading ceased and a silence of death fell over the fort, broken only by the groans of some poor, wounded fellow.  The people within the fort went about talking in whispers.  Three bodies, which they had not had time to bury, lay, stark and silent under the shed, and there were nine fresh graves on the hillside.  In addition, more than thirty of the defenders were disabled from wounds.

Captain Stevens, Sukey, Terrence and Lieutenant Willard were holding a consultation in a room of the old tavern.  Lieutenant Willard said: 

“Captain Stevens, there is no other alternative, we must surrender.  To hold out longer is murder.  If we had a few competent gunners we might drive her away, but with our inexperienced men, we are wasting ammunition and life to resist.”