I can not tell you how the days passed. Suspense and misery were my portion. I wondered each day what the next would have in store for me, and each night what another night would bring. I feared, above all, for Cynthia, and dreaded that those brutal soldiers would force some insult upon her or cause her some injury. My only happiness was in talking with her, and, as often as I could persuade him to do so, I stood upon the Bo's'n's shoulders and conversed with her. I paid for this privilege by making over to the Bo's'n each time a small share of my part in the great diamond. And I paid also in many a bump and bruise, for just as Cynthia and I had come to the most interesting part of our conversation, and she had said to me, "O Hiram! I always forget to tell you——" the Bo's'n would let me fall, and would under no persuasion whatsoever allow me to remount his unwilling back. This, however, I took as a matter of course, and I would have gone through with much more than that to get speech, even once a day, with Cynthia. You can imagine what a welcome diversion it made in the monotonous hours which comprised the days of our wretched existence.
After some days of imprisonment, I asked to be allowed to take a bath. To a man who has had his plunge in the lovely rivers of the North or the salt waves of the sea every day of his life, the close confinement, with but a teacupful of water to bathe in, becomes unendurable. My jailer looked at me with surprise when I asked this favour, and, as he could speak a little English, he informed me that he could not understand my wishing to put my whole body into water; that for him it made him ill! However, he went off to proffer my request to the proper authorities, and, to my great joy, I was allowed the privilege that I asked—probably because it was thought that such an unusual method of procedure would end my life, and that they might as well get rid of me in that way as any other. Imagine my joy when my guide informed me that I was to be allowed to bathe myself in the horse trough! He looked upon me as quite insane, but seemed to think that such mental failure was common to all English-speaking people, which I assured him was true. In his broken English he informed me that once an English admiral had come up from the coast to the palace to remain over night, and that he had brought his bath-tub with him. This was looked upon as a strange piece of infatuation. Imagine my delight and pleasure when the guide opened my cell door and conducted me to the stable yard! I can not describe the numberless passages, corridors, apartments, and barracks through and by which we passed. It seemed to me to be the journey of a half hour. It would have been most interesting had I not been brimming over all the time with my plans for escape and wondering how we could manage to get to the sea. How often I regretted the leaving of the cave. The American captain could have taken us off in a half hour's time, and now, perhaps, when we reached the shore, he would have gone away. I suppose that I was ten minutes walking through the different hallways, but at last we came out into a rough, uneven yard, where there were mules, horses, hay in abundance under cover and in the open, and in the centre of the inclosure was a great trough of water, where I saw that the horses were allowed to drink. The stable yard was some distance below the crest of the hill, and I recalled that we had descended several flights of steps. I threw off my slight clothing and plunged into the trough, the soldiers looking on with astonishment, as much, perhaps, at my white skin as at my evident enjoyment of the delicious bath. They were, for the most part, dirty and ill dressed in soiled white linen, and I recommended to them in choice English not only a bath for themselves, but for their clothes as well. I dried myself in the sun, and then dressed again. As we mounted a flight of steps in the wall, before entering the fortress—or perhaps, I should say, its inclosed portion—I turned for a moment to look once again down into the smiling valley which stretched between me and liberty. Below me, almost embowered in trees, lay the palace of Sans Souci, and winding along, with curves and turnings, ran the white and dusty road which led to Le Cap. As I stopped for a moment to breathe God's air, for perhaps the last time, I was surprised to see flames far below there in the fields, and now I found that the plains were ablaze, cotton as well as sugar fields. The cane sent up a thick smoke, and there came to us on a desultory breeze the rich, odourous smell of the burning sugar. I pointed this out to the guard who had brought me down to the stable yard. He nodded his head, and told me, as well as I could understand, that the fields had been burning for some days, that the rebels were encroaching from the coast, and that if they succeeded in reaching the citadel we should all be burned or shot. So this was the death reserved for us. Capture by rebels no better than Christophe himself! I took my last look at the melancholy but beautiful sight, and turned again toward what I now felt was to be my tomb. I had kept up my courage until that moment, but now, alas! it had flown in a breath. We walked again through many dark corridors, and I saw that we took this time a different turning. I was about to remonstrate with my guard as to this, when there was a sudden beating of a drum and a call to arms. He quickly opened a door and pushed me hurriedly into a room, the door slammed, and I looked up to find that I was confronting Cynthia. I met her with a most disheartening sentence.
"We can at least die together," said I.
"Why should we die at all?" asked Cynthia, running to me with a little cry of joy.
"The rebels are attacking Christophe, and they will treat us even worse than he has."
"How do you know?" asked Cynthia.
"I have just heard so from the guard who put me in here. Of course, my being here is a mistake. He has brought me a story too low, but it is all the same now. We can die together."
"I don't believe we shall die at all," said Cynthia. "I'm dreadfully sorry now that I sent that diamond to the King."
"What diamond?" asked I, almost knowing what she would say.
"Why, the morning that they brought me here I was kneeling there in the corner, praying that we might be saved if it was God's will. I had prayed long and earnestly, and was just rising from my knees, when I heard a curious little chick and rattle, and the most wonderful jewel that I ever imagined rolled out from that crack in the ceiling. It dropped almost into my hands. I have wanted to tell you every day, but you have always gone away so suddenly——"