The gaoler then fancying I would drop him another pistole rather than be
let down into the hole, ordered me to be buried among the rest, which I
resolved to endure rather than break bulk any more. I was conveyed down,
where my old friends received me with a great shout and much
satisfaction. That night I lay cool, without anything to cover me; when
it was day, we all came out of the dungeon, saw one another's faces, and
presently our companions demanded the usual garnish-money, on pain of a
good liquoring. I presently disbursed six reals; but my companions
having nothing to give, the matter was left over till night. Among the
rest in the dungeon, was a tall one-eyed young fellow, with a great pair
of whiskers, a sour look, round shouldered, and those well flogged. He
had a whole smith's forge upon him, double fetters on his legs, and a
great chain hanging from his neck; they called him the Giant; and he
said of himself that he was in prison for petty trifles, which I
concluded to be some mere larceny; and if anybody asked him whether that
was the crime, he answered in the negative, but that it was for backward
sins. When the gaoler reproved him for his tricks, he would call him the
hangman's pantryman, and general storekeeper of sin. At other times he
would cry, "You are a fool to contend with one that will vanish in
smoke; by the Lord I will stifle you as I go off." This he had said,
expecting to be burnt alive. He contracted friendship with another they
called Robledo, and by a nickname the Tumbler, who said he was in prison
for his dexterity, which consisted in making everything vanish he laid
his hands on. He had been lashed by all the beadles and hangmen in
Spain; his face was all over cuts and scars; his ears were at a great
distance, for he carried but one about him, having left the other behind
him in his travels; his nose was soldered together, having been cleft
with a cut of a sword. Four other rampant fellows, like lions in
heraldry, herded with those two, all of them loaded with chains, and
condemned to thrash the sea, that is, to the galleys. These said they
might boast, in a short time, that they had served the king both by sea
and land; and a man would not believe how impatiently they expected
their commission. These people taking it ill that my comrades had not
discharged the duty of garnish, contrived to give them a sound lashing
at night, with a curious rope's end, provided for that purpose. When
night came we were put into the dismal vault, they put out the light,
and I presently secured myself under my bed; two of them began to
whistle, and a third to lay about him with the rope's end. The sparks
perceiving it was like to go ill with them, crowded themselves up so
close together, all the flesh of their bones being before devoured by
the mange and lice, that they found room enough in a cranny between the
boards, lying like so many fleas in a seam, or bugs in a bedstead. The
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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