On entering, the bastonero found Antonio whistling cheerfully, and deliberately using a sharp file, which he had procured no one knew how, but with the aid of which, he had released one of his ankles from the fetterlocks, by which his feet had been secured to a ponderous iron bar that traversed his cell. But though still held fast by one leg, he flung himself bodily, like a wild animal, on the unsuspecting bastonero, tore the heavy keys from his leather girdle, and after dealing him a deadly blow on the head, dashed him, bleeding and senseless, against the wall outside the cell door.
He then closed the latter, locked it on the inside, and resumed the use of the file, which was heard rasping on the steel, while he sang his favorite "Companero, companero," &c.
Aware that the crowd were waiting in the Plaza, and that Spanish crowds were not to be trifled with, in vain did the commandant of the Castle of Santa Cruz, the judge, the escribano, and Fra Anselmo entreat Antonio to cease his fruitless resistance, as his fate was sealed now beyond the reach of pardon even from the captain-general.
Resolved to die as he had lived, like a tiger, Antonio fiercely refused.
The priest next implored him to pass the keys through the iron grating in the cell door.
He uttered a shout of laughter.
The armorer of the castle was now summoned to force the lock; but the mechanism of it resisted all his strength and skill. Senor the commandant was furious!
The pioneers of the garrison were next ordered in with their iron crowbars and sledge-hammers to beat down the door.
It was small but enormously thick, being built of bars of oak and iron bolted together, and curiously inserted in a groove formed in the massive wall of the old castle.
For an hour they toiled at it, and in the intervals of their labor the sound of Antonio's file was heard at work, together with his maledictions, his songs, and fierce derisive laughter.