Madrid, Mar. 9.
Troops of the National Defence Council and the entrenched Communists who have defied the Council's authority paused today in their street battle.
An atmosphere of extreme tension and terror was heightened throughout the city by the Nationalists' warnings, broadcast by radio, that General Francisco Franco was massing hís armies outside the gates. General Franco was prepared, the radio reports said, for an "imminent attack."
The Defence Council announced that during the last two days thousands of Communist leaders and their -followers had been seized and imprisoned at Cartagena, Alicante, Valencia, Murcia, Alcala de Benares, Cuenca, Guadalajara and elsewhere
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.