"'I am the American consul. Your communication was brought to me because your government is not represented here. You're in a bad fix, but I'll help you out if I can. Now tell me all about it.' "Tell him about it! Why, we nearly fell on his neck, and before he left he had our whole story in his head and a lot of our letters and cards in his clothes. They might be of use, he said, in proving that we had not, by any means, started out to undermine his Supreme Highness's government. But that under fear of death--and he winked meaningly--we had been compelled to take up arms against the most illustrious republic of Boccador. "Nine long, weary months passed after this and not another human being crossed our threshold except the head jailer. When we bombarded him with questions about the fellow who had passed himself off as the American consul, and who had stolen our letters and had never shown up since--damn him!--we had all learned to speak a little Spanish by this time--he pretended not to hear and, his inspection over, locked the door behind him. Pretty soon we fell into the ways of all disheartened prisoners--each man following the bent of his nature. I warded off sickening despair by carving with my pocket-knife--which they let me keep as being too small to do them any harm--little figures out of the beef bones I found in my soup. That's how I came to recognize those in Monsieur Lemois' cabinet. When I was lucky enough to get hold of a knuckle bone with a rounded knob at the end, I made a friar with a bald head, the smooth knob answering for his pate. Other bones were turned into grotesque figures of men, women, and animals. These I gave to the sentry, who sent them to his children. Often he brought me small pieces of calico and I made dresses and trousers for them. When I got tired of that I trained two fleas--and they were plenty--to play leap-frog up my arm. "When these little diversions failed to drive dull care away, we passed the time cursing the gentleman in the immaculate cotton ducks. He had either lied to us, or was dead, or had been transferred--anyway, he had gone back on us and left us to rot in jail. "At last we determined to escape. "We had made that same resolution every day for months and had planned out half a dozen schemes, some of which might have been successful but for two difficulties--the double guard on the outside of the building and the two dogs in the jail-yard. There was now but one chance of success. We would dig a hole in the dirt floor clear under the wall, watch for a stormy night, and make a break for the town and the coast, where we might be able to signal some trading craft and so get away.