The events Ammonihah all happened within the tenth year of the reign of the judges. Alma and Amulek were in jail for "many days," and Alma had stayed with Amulek’s family for "many days." He cannot have been with Amulek for more than three or four months, and they cannot have been in jail for more than two or three months, because there were only about six months for those events to occur, since this episode began at the beginning of the seventh month (10:6) and finished before the end of that year (15:19). So, all this happened fairly quickly, even though it takes several chapters to cover this agonizing scene.