The excitement at the first notion of escape thus passed away. My wounded hand, although not altogether disabled, was very stiff and painful, and I had not even the means of washing away the clotted blood. So, sitting, in no merry mood, pondering, upon my bench, the slow hot hours crept by. The sunlight came in a fiery stream where the blue moonbeam had lain the night before. The buzz of insects and the rustling of rich foliage, waved by the fresh sea-breeze, sounded cheerily from without, and sometimes a puff, stronger than common, would find its way into the hot cell, and play round my cheeks and nostrils, bringing with it the cool, fresh savour of the ocean. It might have been about one o’clock, when the friendly turnkey unlocked the door and entered, carrying with him a very fair dinner of meat and roasted plantains, to which was added a small measure of generous Spanish wine. I entreated him, all in a breath, to give me more information touching my projected escape, and also as respected the fate of the schooner. In regard to the latter affair, the man said, he believed that the attack had only been a sort of a feint, or bravado, and that, after some cannonading, a boat with a white flag had put off from the schooner, which had thereupon ceased firing; but the Spaniards not being willing to come to any truce with pirates and sea-robbers, as they called us, had continued to fire upon the boat, and a ball breaking the oars on one side, and very narrowly missing the boat herself, those in her pulled round and back to the schooner. A small squadron of armadilloes then got under weigh, and the schooner had nothing else for it than to stand out to sea, the armadilloes following her, and both exchanging long shots at each other. This I afterwards understood to be a very fair account of the enterprise, which was indeed undertaken only in the hope of wresting me out of the Spaniards’ hands. But I had other friends at work, as the reader will see. The turnkey, who was, or rather pretended to be, in some agitation at the thought of the work which he had been bribed to undertake, now told me that about two o’clock, at the hour when most of the inhabitants of Carthagena are in use to take their siesta, or day-sleep he would be with me again. ‘You may be thankful,’ quoth he, ‘that you were not taken as prisoner to the fort, where, indeed, there would be little chance of escape, let you have what friends you might; but this is not a regular prison, being only a sort of guardhouse, attached to the alcaide’s mansion, for the convenience of keeping accused persons for examination. Therefore, once out of your cell, and furnished with the pass-word, you will have little ado in making your flight to the woods, where you must shift for yourself—he who has paid me to peril my place in the matter having no refuge to offer you.’