At length, after having thoroughly searched everywhere without finding any thing more, I informed them that I had finished, and that we could go when it pleased them. Then the lieutenant approached me, with a grave and threatening air, and told me, through the interpreter, “that I must show the place where I had concealed my money, or I would find myself in trouble.” I answered, with that confidence which truth gives, “that I had not concealed any money; that, if I had thought to put any thing in a place of safety, I should have begun with those things that are used at the altar.” “Deny the fact as you will,” the interpreter then replied to me by order of the officer, “we are certain, and cannot doubt it, that you have a large amount of money, for the soldiers who are our prisoners on board have told us so; and yet we have found but very little in your wardrobe. You must, therefore, have concealed it; and, if you do not immediately give it up, take care of yourself. You know that my pistol is not badly loaded.” I fell on my knees, saying “that they were masters of my life, since I was in their hands and at their will; that if, however, they wished to go to that extreme, I begged them to allow me a moment for prayer; that, for the rest, I had no other money than what they had already taken.” At last, after having left me for some time in that position, and looking at each other, they told me to rise and follow them. They took me under the gallery of the house, which was built over a little grove of cocoa-trees, which I had planted like an orchard, and, having made me sit down, the lieutenant also took a chair, and then putting on an air of gayety, he said, “that I had no occasion for fear, as they did not intend to do me any injury; but that it was impossible I had not concealed any thing, since there was sufficient time, as I had seen them from before my door when they came to take the fort.” I replied to him, what I had already said so often, “that we had been so much terrified by the noise they made during the night, with their shouts and cries, and the incessant firing they kept up, that at first we thought of nothing but escaping death by a speedy flight; the more so as we imagined that they had scattered themselves at the same time through all the houses.” “But, after all,” he replied, “the French prisoners are well acquainted with your means. Why should they have told us that you had plenty of money, if it were not true?” “Do you not see,” said I, “that they wished to conciliate you, and make their court to you at my expense?” “No, no,” he continued; “it is because you do not wish to give up your money. I nevertheless assure you, and I give you my word of honor, that you shall have your liberty, and that we will release you here without burning your houses, if you will, after all, show your treasure.”