“Nothing!” said Roddy. Forgetting that to Peter it was unintelligible, he pointed with a triumphant finger at paragraph four.
“I have found an underground passage into the cell of General Rojas,” he said. “We must go back and dig him out.”
In order to avoid the heat, those planters who lived some distance from Willemstad were in the habit of rising by candlelight, and when the sun rose it found them well advanced upon their journey. So when on the following morning Roddy again set forth to meet Inez Rojas, the few servants who knew of his early departure accepted it, and the excuse he gave of wild-pigeon shooting, as a matter of course.
Without difficulty Roddy found the bridle-path leading down from the cliff road to the sea, and after riding for a short distance along the beach came upon Inez, guarded by the faithful Pedro. The cliff, hollowed at its base by the sea, hung over them, hiding them from any one on the cliff road, and the waves, breaking into spray on an outer barrier of rock, shut them from the sight of those at sea.
As Inez rose from the rock on which she had been seated and came eagerly to meet him, her face was radiant with happiness. Over night she appeared to have gained in health and strength, to have grown younger, and, were it possible, more beautiful. The satisfaction in the eyes of Roddy assured her that he, also, had solved the riddle.
“You have seen the book,” she called; “you understand?”
“I think so,” replied Roddy. “Anyway, I’ve got a sort of blueprint idea of it. Enough,” he added, “to work on.”
“I didn’t tell my mother,” Inez announced. “Nor,” she continued, as though defying her own misgivings, “do I mean to tell her. Until you can get back word to me, until you say that this time you believe we may hope, it seems to me it would be kinder to keep her in ignorance. But I told Pedro,” she added. She flashed a grateful smile at the old man, and he bowed and smiled eagerly in return. “And he has been able to help me greatly. He tells me,” she went on, “that his father, who was in the artillery, was often stationed at Morro before it was abandoned. That was fifty years ago. The tunnel was then used daily and every one knew of it. But when the troops were withdrawn from Morro the passage was walled up and each end blocked with stone. In San Carlos it opened into the guard-room. El Morro was hardly a fortress. It was more of a signal-station. Originally, in the days of the pirates, it was used as a lookout. Only a few men were kept on guard there, and only by day. They slept and messed at San Carlos. Each morning they were assembled in the guard-room, and from there marched through the tunnel to El Morro, returning again at sunset.”
“I don’t know El Morro,” said Roddy.
“You have probably seen it,” Inez explained, “without knowing it was a fort. It’s in ruins now. Have you noticed,” she asked, “to the right of the town, a little hill that overlooks the harbor? It is just above the plain where the cattle are corralled until they are shipped to Cuba. Well, the ruins of El Morro are on top of that hill. It is about a quarter of a mile from San Carlos, so we know that is the length of the tunnel. Pedro tells me, for a part of the way it runs under the water of the harbor. It was cut through the solid rock by the prisoners at San Carlos.”