After deliberating for an extremely short space of time (for when a man has nobody near to bother him with advice, he makes up his mind with incredible despatch), he concluded that there would be no danger in leaving the guard-house just as he found it, for sundry reasons; in the first place, the present circumstances had probably existed some hours; secondly, as there was nothing there for the guard to watch over but the empty bottles, &c. said guard might as well sleep as be awake; thirdly--but by this time he was almost at his excellency's door, and it was hardly worth while to follow any farther a line of reasons that threatened to stretch out to the crack of day, if not of doom. After abundance of vociferating and thumping, he succeeded in rousing the governor from his slumbers, and bringing him to the window, night-capped and night-gowned "proper," as the heralds say. His excellency was thunderstruck at the intelligence, and in a few minutes his household was in motion. His two daughters had no sooner learned that the prisoners had escaped, than they hastened to the chamber of their cousin, Isabella, to communicate the joyful intelligence. To their surprise and consternation no cousin Isabella was to be found; the chamber was in its usual state, but it was immediately obvious that the bed had not been pressed that night by its lovely occupant; one or two of the drawers of a bureau, in which she had formerly kept sundry articles of clothing, were open and empty; nor was this all; the doors of a little book-case, that stood upon a table in one corner of the room, and that formerly contained thirty or forty volumes, were also open, and every volume was gone.