As she spoke she drew from her bosom a phial, containing a dark liquid. Morton started back in horror—(he thought he saw, in the composed and lovely countenance of the beautiful being before him, the cold-blooded, deliberate, practised assassin—)
"Good God! Isabella, is it possible? never, never will I owe my life and liberty to such abominable, such cowardly means!"
"Dismiss your suspicions," said Isabella, turning pale and trembling; "they are unworthy of you, and wholly unmerited by me. Not to save your life, which I value as I do my own, would I commit mur—the crime that you suspect. This phial contains a simple opiate, not half so dangerous or disagreeable as the laudanum and camphor of your ship's medicine chest. The sleep produced by it is speedy and deep, and lasts four or five hours."
Observing that Morton still looked distrustingly, she continued, with streaming eyes—
"Dear Charles, if you doubt me still, I will swallow the whole; its operation will not take place before I reach home, and will only cause long, deep sleep; but, in that case, your hopes of escape are cut off forever. To-morrow, or the next day, at farthest, you are to be sent to the capital"—her tears choked her utterance.
"Dearest Isabella," said Morton, taking her hands in both his, and pressing them to his bosom, "forgive my cruel suspicions, but I own you startled me exceedingly."
"Leave all to my management, and in half an hour all will be well."
In the mean time the seamen had "boarded" the basket, and spread its contents upon the stone bench, that did triple duty as a bed, a seat, and a table, as occasion required. The soldiers roused themselves at the gurgling sound of the wine, as it was decanted into cups made of the large end of an ox's horn, scraped thin, and capable of containing a pint or more. Isabella dexterously poured the contents of the phial into a cup, which was filled with wine, and Morton, taking it in his hand, approached the corporal with a nod of invitation. After holding it to his lips for some time, as if taking a deep draught, he passed it to the corporal; that officer, touching his cap à la militaire, drank and passed the horn, according to South American custom, to his comrades. The prisoners and Isabella watched its circulation with most painful anxiety, and soon had the felicity of beholding it turned bottom upwards over the mouth of the sentry at the door. Another bottle was opened, and poured, unobserved by the soldiers, into another cup, which, being handed to the sailors, was almost immediately passed back again, "a body without a soul." Another cup, medicated like the first, was prepared, and the prisoners, apparently busied with their supper, awaited with trepidation the effect of the medicine.
After the lapse of fifteen or twenty minutes, which seemed as many hours to the prisoners, the corporal betrayed palpable symptoms of somnolency. He had seated himself with his back to the wall, and his feet towards a small fire that was kept burning in the middle of the guard-room every night, to drive away the moschetoes, and had commenced a song, in a low voice. The first stanza he managed very respectably; but, before he had half finished the second, both the air and words seemed strangely deranged; his head sank upon his breast, and he snored repeatedly, instead of singing; he made an effort to arouse himself, uttered that ejaculation common to all ranks and both sexes of Spaniards, but which is too gross to be written, and, stretching himself at full length upon the floor, was sound asleep in an instant. His three comrades were not slow in following his example; wrapped in their ponchos, or South American cloaks, they "took ground" around the fire, and were soon asleep.
The sentry at the door, after two or three times stumbling over his own feet, and as often dropping his musket out of his arms from mere drowsiness, came into the guard-room to light a segar, which he eventually accomplished at the imminent risk of pitching head foremost into the fire. He resumed his station at the door, but was too sleepy to walk on his post; he seated himself on the stone bench, the butt of his musket resting upon the ground between his feet, and the muzzle leaning against his shoulder; the lighted segar dropped from his mouth; he leaned his head against the door-post, extended his feet and legs, and in a few seconds his nasal organ, in strains like the nocturnal song of one of our largest bull-frogs, gave notice that he was "absent without leave" to the land of Nod.