Then had come the Day of the Beans. One hundred and fifty-three white beans and seventeen black beans were placed in a bowl, and every prisoner, blindfolded, was forced to draw one. The seventeen who drew the black beans were promptly shot, and the others were compelled to march on. He remembered how lightly they had taken it, even when it was known who had drawn the black beans. These men, mostly young like himself, had jested about their bad luck, and had gone to their death smiling. He did not know how they could do it, but it was so, because he had seen it with his own eyes. Then they had marched on until they came to the Castle of Montevideo. There the world ended. There was nothing but time, divided into alternations of night and day. He had seen nobody but soldiers, except the old woman Catarina, who seemed to be a sort of scullion. After he recovered from the prison fever of which his comrade of the chains died, the old woman had shown a sort of pity for him; perhaps she liked him as one often likes those upon whom one has conferred benefits. She yielded to his entreaties for a pencil for an hour or so, and some paper, just a sheet or two. She smuggled them to him, and she smuggled away the letter that he wrote. She did not know what would happen, but she would give it to her son Porfirio, who was a vaquero. Porfirio would give it to his friend Antonio Vaquez, who was leading a burro train north to Monterey. After that was the unknown, but who could tell? Antonio Vaquez was a kind man, and the Holy Virgin sometimes worked miracles for the good. As for the poor lad, the prisoner, he must rest now. He had been _muy malo_ (very sick), and it was not good to worry. John tried not to worry. It was such easy advice to give and so very hard for one to take who had been buried alive through a time that seemed eternity, and who had been forgotten by all the world, except his jailers. That letter had gone more than a year ago, and, of course, it had not reached its destination. He ought never to have thought such a thing possible. Very likely it had been destroyed by Porfirio, the vaquero, old Catarina’s son. He had not seen old Catarina herself in a long time. Doubtless they had sent her away because she had been kind to him, or they may have found out about the letter. He was very sorry. She was far from young, and she was far from beautiful, but her brief presence at intervals had been cheering. He watched the last rays of the sun fade on the volcanic slope. A single beam, livid and splendid, lingered for a moment, and then was gone. After it came the dark, with all the chilling power of great elevation. The cold even penetrated the deep slit that led through twelve feet of solid masonry, and John Bedford shivered. It was partly the dark that made him shiver. He rose from the stool and made his way slowly and painfully to his cot against the wall, his chains rattling heavily over the floor.