The male occupants of the house were just finishing early breakfast next morning when Senor Calderon presented himself before them, in a condition of considerable mental discomposure, with the intelligence that the prisoner had apparently contrived to effect his escape; for one of the negroes had just come up to the house with the report that, upon his opening the door of the tobacco shed to give the captive his breakfast, Alvaros was found to have disappeared, and no trace of him had thus far been discovered. This was distinctly alarming news, for it was instantly recognised that if Alvaros had really contrived to get clear away, he would undoubtedly make the best of his way back to Havana and there report to the authorities the violence to which he had been subjected; and also, possibly, the rescue of the Montijos from the convict ship, though mention of the latter would probably depend upon whether their conviction had been the result of representations to the Capitan-General, or whether, as Don Ramon Bergera had surmised, it had been the work of Alvaros alone. In either case, the consequences were likely to be quite serious to the Montijos; and Carlos, accompanied by Jack and Calderon, at once hurried away to investigate the circumstances of the alleged escape. Upon their arrival at the tobacco shed they found the door of the building still locked and the negro guard still posted before it, the door having been re-fastened, as Calderon explained, immediately upon the discovery of the prisoner's disappearance. Entering the shed, they at once satisfied themselves as to the truth of the statement that its late occupant was no longer in it, for the building was absolutely empty, and, being a perfectly plain structure, with simply four stone walls, a cement floor, and an unceiled roof, there was no nook or cranny in which even a rat, much less a man, could conceal himself. Moreover, the rope by which he had been, as it was thought, securely bound before being left on the previous evening, was lying upon the floor, immediately beneath one of the large, shuttered openings in the walls which were used for the admission of light and air into the shed as required. The position of the rope naturally led to an examination of the opening beneath which it lay; and it was then found that the massive bolts securing the shutter had been drawn, and that therefore there was nothing to prevent the prisoner from escaping through the opening-- provided that he could free himself from the rope and reach it. But how he had contrived to accomplish these two things was the mystery: for Carlos and Jack had both been present during the lashing-up of Alvaros, and they both felt that they would have been fully prepared to declare that for the prisoner to release himself would be a simple impossibility, so securely had he been bound; while the sill of the opening was quite nine feet from the floor, and for a man to reach it