In vain I sought information on these points from those around me. My Spanish was not the very purest Castilian, it is true; but here, another and greater obstacle to knowledge existed: no one cared anything for the past, and very little for the future; the last event that held a place in their memory was the day of their admission, the fell malady was the centre round which all thoughts revolved, and I was regarded as a kind of visionary, when asking about circumstances that occurred before I entered the hospital. There were vague and shadowy rumors about me and my adventure,--so much I could find out; but whatever these were, scarcely two agreed on,--not one cared. Some said I had killed a priest; others averred it was a negro; a few opined that I had done both; and an old mulatto woman, with a face like a target, the bull's-eye being represented by where the nose ought to be, related a more connected narrative about my having stolen a horse, and being overtaken by a negro slave of the owner, who rescued the animal and stabbed _me_. All the stories tallied in one particular, which was in representing me as a fellow of the most desperate character and determination, and who cared as little for shedding blood as spilling water,--traits, I am bound to acknowledge, which never appeared to lower me in general esteem. Of course, all inquiries as to my horse, poor Charry, my precious saddle-bags, my rifle, my bowie-knife, and my "Harper's-ferry," would have proved less than useless,--actually absurd. The patients would have reckoned such questions as little vagaries of mental wandering, and the servants of the house never replied to anything. My next anxiety was, when I should be at liberty? The doctor, when I asked him, gave a peculiar grin, and said, "We cannot spare you, amigo; we shall want to look at your pericardium one of these days. _I_ say it is perforated; Don Emanuel says not. Time will tell who 's right." "You mean when I'm dead, Señhor, of course?" cried I, not fancying the chance of resolving the difficulties by being carved alive. "Of course I do," said he. "Yours is a very instructive case; and I shall take care that your heart and a portion of the left lung be carefully injected, and preserved in the museum." "May you live a thousand years!" said I, bowing my gratitude, while a chill crept over me that I thought I should have fainted. I have already mentioned that sentries were placed at intervals round the walls to prevent escape,--a precaution which, were one to judge from the desolate and crippled condition of the inmates, savored of over care. A few were able to crawl along upon crutches, the majority were utterly helpless, while the most active were only capable of creeping up the bank which formed the boundary of the grounds, to look down into the moat beneath,--a descent of some twenty feet, but which, to imaginations such as theirs, was a gulf like the crater of a volcano.