Don Fernando was carried thus into a boat by Pablito, Carlocho, and a third vaquero; while the remainder went off by land, taking their comrades' horses with them. Three hours later, the prisoner, to whom his keepers had not spoken a word during the journey, was carried into the presidio, and shut up in a house lately hired by the Tigercat in a fictitious name—a circumstance of which Don Fernando knew nothing.
The bandage was taken from his eyes, his hands were freed; but a man in a mask, mute as a tomb, was placed in his chamber, and never left him.
The wounded man, harassed by the journey, and weakened by the blood he had lost, resolved, for the present, to trust to chance for relief from his annoying and incomprehensible situation. He gave that apparently listless but all-observant glance around him which is peculiar to prisoners, and dropped off into a deep sleep, lasting many hours, and restoring to his mind all its coolness and original clearness.
The people who served him, though masked and dumb, took the greatest care of him, and seemed to vie with each other in their endeavours to comply with his wishes, and satisfy his most capricious whims. In point of fact, his position was tolerable; at bottom, there was a spice of originality about it; and Don Fernando, convinced, at the end of two days' experience, that no attempt would be made on his life, but that, on the contrary, every effort was made to heal his wounds as quickly as possible, concluded to bear his lot bravely, in the expectation of better times.
The third day of his captivity, Don Fernando, whose wounds were only sword cuts, and now nearly cicatrised, rose from his bed, partly to try his strength, and partly to look out and discover where he was: it was requisite to know the locality, in order to mature the scheme of escape he was already secretly planning.
The weather was magnificent; the hot sunlight shone cheerfully in at the windows, tracing the bars on the floor of the chamber which served as his prison. It made him feel quite refreshed, and he tried to walk a few steps, still carefully watched by his inevitable guard, whose flaming eyes were never off him. Suddenly a terrible clamour arose, and a round of artillery shook the panes.
"What is that?" asked Don Fernando.
His keeper shrugged his shoulders, but did not reply.
The sharp cracking of muskets was now mingled with the roar of the guns; and it became evident that a hard fight was going on somewhere in the neighbourhood. His keeper, imperturbable as ever, closed the windows.
Don Fernando went up to him. The two men stared at each other for a moment. Many a time had the wounded man addressed a question to this stolid sentry without eliciting an answer, and now he hesitated a little before making a fresh attempt.