He drew an enormous key from the pocket of the Mexican, unlocked the gate, and, after they had passed out, locked it behind them. Then they stood on the edge of the great moat, two hundred feet wide, twenty feet deep and bank full. The man dropped the key into the water.
"Now, Sir John of the Escape," he said, "the drawbridge is up, and if it were down it would be too well guarded for us to pass. We must swim. I don't know how strong you are after a long life in prison, but swim you must. Life is dear, and I think you'll swim. We'll take off most of our clothes and tie them with our weapons on our heads. What a wild night! But how good it is for us!"
Crouching in the shadow of the wall they took off most of their clothes, and then each tied them in a package containing his weapons, also, on his head. They were secured with strips torn from John's rags. Meanwhile, the night was increasing in wildness. John would have viewed it with awe, had not his escape absorbed every thought. The wind groaned through the gorges of the great Sierra, and the cold rain lashed like a whip. The rumblings of thunder came from far and deep valleys between the ridges.
"Now," said the man, "we'll drop into the moat together. But let yourself down by your hands as gently as you can, and make no splash when you strike. Now, over we go!"
The two dropped into the water, taking care not to go under, and then began to swim toward the far edge of the moat. John had been a good swimmer, but the water was very cold to his thin body. Nevertheless, he swam with a fairly steady stroke, until they were about half-way across, when he felt cramps creeping over him. But the stranger, who kept close by his side, had been watching, and he put one hand under John's body. In water the light support became a strong one, and now John swam easily.
They reached the far edge and climbed up on the wall. Here John lay a little while, gasping, while the stranger, who now seemed a very god to him, rubbed his cold body to bring back the warmth. From a point down the bank came the cry "Sentinela alerte!" and from a point in the other direction came the answering cry, "Sentinela alerte!"
"Lie flat," whispered his rescuer to John, "and we'll wriggle across fifty feet of ground here until we come to a wooden wall. We're lost if we stand up, because I think lightning is coming with that thunder."
He spoke with knowledge, as the thunder suddenly grew louder and the air around them was tinted with phosphorescent light. It was not a flare of lightning, merely its distant reflection, but it was enough to have disclosed them, if they had been standing, to any one ten paces distant. The danger itself gave them new strength, and they quickly crossed the ground to the chevaux de frise, where they crouched against the tall cedar posts. They lay almost flat upon the ground, and they were very glad of the shelter, because the lightning was coming nearer. Now, when the lightning flashed along the mountain slopes, they saw not far away the dim figure of a soldier, and they heard distinctly his cry: "Sentinela alerte!"
"Wait until he goes back," whispered the stranger. "Then we must climb the wall and climb it quickly. It's fastened with cross timbers which will give us hold for both hand and foot."
The lightning tinted the sky once more with its phosphorescent gleam, and they did not see the soldier.