He felt so good that he chaffed Diego when he came back with his food at dinner and supper. Diego had long been a source of wonder to John. It was evident that he breathed and walked, because John had seen him do both, and he could speak, because at rare intervals John had heard him utter a word or two, but this power of speech seemed to be merely spasmodic. Now, while John bantered him, he was as stolid as any wooden image of Aztecs or Toltecs, although John spoke in Spanish, which, bad as it was, Diego could understand. He devoted the last hours of the afternoon to watching his distant garden. It had always been a pleasant landscape to him, but now it was friendlier than ever. That was a fine cactus, and it was a noble forest of dwarf pine or cedar--he wished he did know which. An hour after the dark had fully come he let the thread out again. "This beats any other fishing I ever did," he murmured. "Well, it ought to. It’s fishing for one’s life." He was calmer than on the night before, and fell asleep earlier, but he had fixed his mind so resolutely on a waking time at least an hour before daylight that he awoke almost at the appointed minute. Then he tiptoed across the cold floor to the thread. Nobody could have heard him through those solid walls, but the desire for secrecy was so strong that he unconsciously tiptoed, nevertheless. He pulled the thread, and he felt at once that something heavy had been fastened to the other end. Then he pulled more slowly. The thread was very slender, and the weight seemed great for so slight a line. If it were to break, the tragedy would be genuinely terrible. He had heard of the sword suspended by a single hair, and it seemed to him that he was in some such case. But the thread was stronger than John realized--it had been chosen so on purpose--and it did not break. As the far end of the thread approached the loophole, he was conscious of a slight metallic ring against the stone wall. His interest grew in intensity. Phil and these unknown friends of his were sending him something more than a note. He pulled with exceeding slowness and care now, lest the metallic object hook against the far edge of the loophole. But it came in safely, slid across the stone, and reached his hand. It was a large iron key, with a small piece of paper tied around it. He tore off the paper, and read, in a handwriting the same as that on the first one: "This is the key to your cell, No. 37, but do not use it. Do not even put it in the lock until the fourth night from to-night. Then at midnight, as nearly as you can judge, unlock and go out. Let out the thread for the last time to-morrow night."