Perhaps with patience and a year of time, one might have dug a hole through, but I was not a life prisoner, like Edmond Dante, and my case would evidently meet with speedy settlement at the hands of the irate alcalde, who was laying his wires to get all that was possible out of the game.
That meant, very plainly, that more urgent measures would have to be adopted if I hoped to desert my palatial quarters.
My fuel, being very limited, the supply gave out, leaving me in darkness.
All I could do was to walk up and down like a caged tiger; at first I experienced more or less trouble, coming in contact with the walls, which were very unsympathetic; but by degrees I learned caution, and, counting my steps, managed to spare my head.
Then came my jolly friend, the black-bearded buccaneer, with his royal fare—this time he had, with a generosity I could never forget, varied the menu; it was no longer beans and cakes and water, but cakes, water and beans.
Never mind, at least the supply was a little more generous than on former occasions, and I was no fault-finder.
Again I rallied him, firing at him several chestnuts I had recollected; but the fellow’s heart never gave a responsive throb, and I sighed to think what a dreary desert this bright world must appear to a man of his caliber. Perhaps he had recently been jilted by his best girl, and was still in the throes of bitterness, for surely nothing else could make a man look as though he would be happy to bite a piece of steel in two.
So he faded from my view, and I was once more left alone.
But his coming had given me an idea.
He had suspended his lantern, an American one at that, from the iron knob of the door, while he spread the festive board, or, in more simple but less elegant language, dumped my grub upon the stone floor with a recklessness that gave me pain.