A short but brisk walk brought the guide and myself in sight of the town. On the outskirts the campfires of the Spanish soldiers burned brightly. These we carefully avoided, and made a détour, coming up presently to the bank of the stream upon which the fort was located.
The river was broad and shallow, and as it ran but sluggishly we might have forded across, but this would have placed us in plain view of the sentries, who marched up and down along the river bank and in front of the prison-house.
Disdaining to undress, we dropped down into the stream and swam over, with only our faces out of water, and without a sound, to a spot behind the building opposite. We came up in a tiny hollow, screened by several small bushes, and crawled on our stomachs to the rear of the wing in which the guide said the American prisoner was incarcerated.
I had a long and broad dagger which I had picked up the day previous, and Jorge had his machete, and with these we began to dig a tunnel leading under the wooden wall of the fort. Fortunately, the ground was not hard, and soon we broke through the very flooring of the prison. I was in the lead, and in great eagerness I poked up my head and gazed around me.
“Hullo, who’s there?” cried a startled voice, in English, and my heart sank completely, for the prisoner was not my father at all.
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
GILBERT BURNHAM.
“Are you alone?” I asked, when I had recovered sufficiently to speak.