At the moment when this individual appeared in the doorway, the Indian leapt on him with a tiger's bound, threw him down and seized him by the throat; before the poor fellow so unexpectedly attacked had time to utter a cry or make the slightest effort in his defence, he was bound and gagged. The Comanche, leaping over his body, ran down the passage and disappeared with extraordinary rapidity. All this took place so hurriedly, that the hunter guessed rather than saw what had occurred. The gaoler still lay motionless, with half his body inside, the other half outside, the dungeon. When the Indian had disappeared, the hunter rose and went up to the gaoler. "What the deuce are you doing there?" he said, as he bent over him and freed him with studied slowness from the bonds and the gag which the chief had driven in so conscientiously that he almost choked his man. When the gaoler was liberated, and put on his legs again by his prisoner, he looked around him in alarm, breathed forcibly two or three times, and then, uttering an exclamation of rage, he dashed down the passage with shouts and oaths, forgetting in his hurry to lock the cell door. "Seek him," the hunter muttered with a cunning look, "you will be very clever if you catch him. I know not what will come of all this; but the general will be furious, and that is the main point." And, without dreaming of imitating the chief's example, he picked up the lantern, which by a singular chance had not been extinguished, took the basket, returned to the cell, sat down on the ground with the light in front of him, and began eating with philosophic ease, growling from time to time at the parsimony of the Spaniards, who had hardly given him enough to appease his outrageous hunger. The Canadian was in the thick of this agreeable operation, when he suddenly heard in the passage a tremendous tumult of shouts and hurried footsteps, mingled with the clang of arms. A few minutes after, twenty officers and soldiers dashed like a whirlwind into the dungeon, among them being the gaoler, who alone gesticulated and shouted more than all the rest. On seeing the hunter quietly engaged in eating, they stopped in amazement, so convinced were they that he would have escaped too. When the agitation and tumult were slightly appeased, and it became possible to hear anything, one of the officers at length addressed the hunter. "What," he asked him, "have you not gone?" "I?" he replied, looking up stupidly, "Why should I do so, as I shall be free tomorrow?" "You helped your companion's flight," the gaoler said, shaking his fist at him. "You are an idiot, my friend; the man could not be my companion, as he is an Indian," he said, with the greatest calmness.