Again the alcaide questioned me, again I made the same reply, and again the provost-marshal wrenched round the screw. This time, amid the slight squeak of the revolving iron, all heard the crackle of the bone; the skin too, had given way beneath metallic pressure, and a gush of black bruised blood spurted over the iron and the thin fingers of the provost-marshal, and then dropped in thick plashy globules upon the floor. Almost at the same instant a mist came up before my eyes, and hid the fierce faces which surrounded me. I tottered, and leant upon the surgeon, and a cold feeling of sickness almost unto death gripped my very being, and seemed to stop the fountains of life. It was the very depth of that suffering which drew from me the only low shuddering moan I uttered. But hardly had the sound escaped than there was a tramp of footsteps rushing into the room, and a loud voice which cried—
‘Señor the alcaide is wanted upon the beach; a schooner with English colours set, which hath been hovering in the offing all the morning, is standing in for the harbour, as though she would carry the galleon even under the very guns of the batteries.’
And in an instant, as though to roar a chorus to the words of the messenger, the heavy reports of great guns shook the ill-fitting casements of the chamber; and a great and confused jangle of many bells, and the echoes of a shouting crowd, came floating together upon the air. I started up—the mist cleared from before me—even the sense of pain and sickness left me, and looking with exultation on the pale and scared faces of my tormentors, I shouted, ‘Huzza! for the bold Brethren of the Coast! Courage, comrades! courage, and the day is our own!’
‘Send the fellow back to his cell,’ said the alcaide, very hurriedly. ‘Captain Guzman, turn out your guard. We will finish with him when we have finished with his comrades in the harbour. Perhaps there will be more to deal with presently.’
‘The more the merrier,’ said the ferret-eyed clerk, and they shuffled hastily out together. Meantime, the provost-marshal unscrewed his thumbikin with as much coolness as he had adjusted it. My hand was all bloody and swollen. The doctor looked at it, felt the thumb with his fingers, and then said, ‘My good fellow, your comrades came to your aid just in time; another wrench and that hand would be of small use to you for the rest of your life.’
The provost-marshal, who was wiping the blood from his instrument, smiled meaningly. ‘Why, good doctor,’ quoth he, ‘considering what is like enough to be the extent of the youngster’s life, I do not see the great hardship of disabling him.’
The doctor shrugged his shoulders, and walked out. The only turnkey who remained clapped his hand on my shoulder, and I followed him, binding up my lacerated hand with a kerchief. I was presently conducted to the same cell as that which I had already occupied; but, to my great astonishment, instead of shutting me in and leaving me to my meditations, the man first cast a rapid glance up and down the corridor, and then closing the door upon both of us, caught me by the collar of the doublet, and whispered:—
‘You have a good friend. Keep up your heart, and you may yet have a chance for your life.’
The blessed words fell upon my ears like rain on parched herbage.
‘Who—who is it? Of whom do you speak?’ I cried, eagerly.