Ten, fifteen minutes pass. The tread of the carcelero on his rounds sounds from the corridor and a light is flashed into the cell. A counterfeit snore from Ashley greets him and he passes on with a muttered “Dios! He sleeps as if to-morrow were his wedding day.” In five minutes, his round of inspection completed, he repasses the cell door and continues on, until silence again enshrouds the prison.
Then Ashley arises, takes out his jack-knife and opens one of the blades, a finely tempered steel saw.
“Thank heaven for that much Yankee inventiveness!” he murmurs, as he sinks on one knee beside the iron door of his cell and applies the saw blade to the lower end of one of the rusty bars.
As the steel slowly but surely eats its way into the corroded iron and finally slips entirely through, Ashley again, aided by a match, consults his watch. It is nearly three o’clock. Scarcely had he extinguished the lucifer than the approach of the carcelero is heard, and he retreats to his pallet, to again feign an audible slumber.
All still once more, and he attacks the upper end of the bar. When almost severed he seizes it with both hands and exerts all his strength. The iron snaps, and as Ashley falls back the bar slips from his hands and drops to the floor of the cell with a loud clang.
Jack inwardly curses his carelessness. Such a tremendous noise would alarm the sleepiest of guards. He must act, and act quickly.
To squeeze through the space made in the door is the work of some moments, and it is not accomplished an instant too soon. A light approaches.
Ashley remembers that opposite his cell is another, the door to which is ajar. With the iron bar in his hand he gropes his way across the corridor and into the open cell. A moment later the carcelero, lantern in hand, stands before the now tenantless pen, and stares stupidly at the wreck of the iron door.
Before he can utter an outcry the bar in Ashley’s hand descends upon his head with crushing force and he drops like a log.
“I hope I didn’t kill the poor devil,” thinks Jack. He drags the unconscious man into the open cell, and, tearing and tying his handkerchief into a gag, he makes assured the silence of the carcelero. Then he extinguishes the lantern and is soon standing at the entrance of the prison.