Succeeding upon that firing of the great gun there was an immediate confusion wherein we in our dungeon were wholly forgot. A cannon from the fort answered our challenge a while after, but by its faintness 'twas easy to suppose we had got a good way out of the harbour and thus were free from any present danger from a land attack. But whether there were in the roads gathered any vessels of war that might do us harm upon the sea we could not conjecture, though it appeared not altogether likely, or at the least that they were not at all points prepared upon the sudden to give chase. Our main fear lay in the probability that, the alarm being given, messengers would be dispatched to all points of the coast, with particulars given of the rank and appearance of our ship, in order that, attempting to sail through the Straits into the Mediterranean or to slip away again northward, we should be made to answer for our gunnery salute in such sort as would hardly please us. But however these considerations affected his two censors in the hold, Captain Spurrier was evidently nothing moved thereby, who warped his ship as it were along the very shore with a most insensate impudency until he had her within the narrow waters about Gibraltar, where a man could have slung a stone upon our decks, so nearly did we venture ourselves into the enemy's power. Nay, a general madness seemed to have grown to possess the whole crew, so disappointed were they of the outcome of their late negotiations and proffers of treachery; and no folly that presented itself to them, but they took it as a drunken man takes water, feverishly. Thus our cannon were continually being shot off, not of offence but for the mere show of bravery it put upon us; and so likewise of defence, there was no order taken nor was any especial guard kept, so far as we could tell who knew not the watches, but yet could distinguish well enough the sounds of cups clinking and of quarrelling and curses. Indeed I doubt whether, at any hour of this our frenzied voyage, had a cock-boat of resolute men put out to intercept us, we should not have been made prize of, before we were aware that opposition was so much as offered. In the meanwhile we in our chains were, as I say, left undisturbed; and as hour after hour went by the hunger we suffered increased so that I think another day of such absolute privation, and of the burning thirst that went with it, would have ended our business altogether. Yet it was to this incredible affliction we owed our resolution to get free, come what would thereafter. I must have fallen into some raving speech, that served to make manifest to my uncle the abject condition I was in, for before I knew of it, he had dragged himself over to me, and with his skeleton fingers had loosened the band at my throat and chafed my hands together between his own. "Oh, let me die," I cried fiercely.