"But," said Tiburcio, "I'm not doing it, and why? Simply because I want to know if you care to escape?" "W'y," returned Driscoll, "I'll think it over, and let you know in the morning," at which lack of confidence Tiburcio was more hurt than ever. "What's the use," Driscoll objected, "they'd catch me again?" "Not if I fixed their horses, and if I do, will you promise to get out?" And thus the bargain had stood, and thus it was fulfilled, though at the last the anxious Tiburcio had called in Jacqueline to help. "Now," said the marchioness, settling herself for a treat, "I _must_ know. Tame for me the miracle, explain it. I cannot longer hold my curiosity. But it was fine--exquis--however you have done it!" "Weren't they a surprised lot, though?" "But the miracle, monsieur! The miracle!" "Well, it was this way. Being on the yawning brink--as old Meagre Shanks, friend of mine, would say--I figured it out that lacking in godliness, I'd try to get the next best thing." "Please, monsieur!" "That I'd try to get a bath." "Of dust and mud, for example?" At that Driscoll ceased all miracle taming and brushed himself off. But, putting him back into his dungeon, one will recall how he plotted to obtain two jars of water. This water he used simply to soften the hard, sun-baked adobes. First he hung his coat over the window. A suspicious guard naturally wanted to know why, and Driscoll appeared at the bars stripped to the waist. To keep out the cold air while he bathed, he said, and his teeth chattered. Then he went back to work. He handled his precious water with desperate economy. He began at the exposed end of one adobe brick, soaking it as needed and digging it out with a chip of earthenware knocked off one of the jars. The wall was two adobe lengths in thickness, but after he had gotten out his first brick, it was easy, by tugging and kicking, to tear out the others of the inside tier, since luckily they did not dovetail in with the outer ones. Soon he had an arch-shaped niche in the wall almost as high as his head when mounted on Demijohn. The really tedious part remained, and it was an all night job. To deepen the niche without breaking through, he had to scrape it out piecemeal, wetting the dried mud as he toiled. He measured carefully just how much of the thickness to leave, because the weed stalks in the adobe could not be trusted to hold too thin a crust, and also he had to take care that the water did not soak entirely through and make a tell-tale blot on the outside when daylight should come. It was an infinitely laborious task, and even with completion at last, there was yet the question--which would break first, bone or masonry?