Without waiting another moment, I seize my walking-stick and panama hat, and escape from the enchanted chamber into the street. The hot air does not dispel the giddy feeling which had come over me, and not until I have reached my well-ventilated abode, changed my damp linen, and sponged my fevered body with 'aguardiente' and water, do I feel myself again. I am better still after having taken a refreshing siesta in my swinging hammock, in which condition I dream of black pins, burnt hair, raw mustard, and sulphur. When I awake, I examine carefully the lining of my panama, and the ferule end of my walking-stick, to satisfy myself that no burglarious bruja has taken advantage of my repose to tamper with my property. But whether it is that my stick and hat are of no great value, or that the defences of our studio are impregnable, no bruja has offered to take 'charge' of these things by labelling them with their infernal tickets.
My partner, to whom I record the events of the day, is of opinion that if all models are as difficult to secure as La Perpetua, we had better abandon our researches in this direction, and abide by our street criers and mendicants. He also suggests a little landscape-painting by way of variety, and, with this object in view, we plan certain walking expeditions into the surrounding country. What subjects for landscape pictures we meet with, and whether or not we are more successful in our quest after inanimate nature, will be told in another chapter.
CHAPTER VIII.
A TASTE OF CUBAN PRISON-LIFE.
Two Views of the Morro Castle—The Commandant—The Town Jail—Cuban Policemen—Prisoners—A Captive Indian—Prison Fare—A Court of Justice—A Trial—A Verdict.
I dream that I am Silvio Pellico, that the prisoner of St. Helena is my fellow-captive, and that an apartment belonging to the Spanish Inquisition is our dormitory. Clasps of iron eat their way into our ankles and wrists; gigantic rats share our food; our favourite exercise is swinging head downwards in the air, and our chief recreation is to watch the proceedings of tame spiders.
I awake and find my bed unusually hard. My bed-clothes have vanished, and in their stead are a couple of hard benches, with my wearing apparel rolled up for a pillow. By a dim light I observe that my apartment is remarkably small, bare, damp, and dome-shaped. The window is a barred aperture in the door; is only a foot square, and looks on to the patio, or narrow passage, where unlimited wall stares me in the face. Do I still dream, or is this actually one of 'le mie prigioni'? I rub my eyes for a third time, and look about the semi-darkened vault. Somebody is snoring. I gaze in the direction whence the sound proceeds, and observe indistinctly an object huddled together in a corner. So, this is no dream, after all; and that heap of sleeping humanity is not Napoleon, but my companion, Nicasio Rodriguez y Boldú.
We are both shut up in one of the subterranean dungeons of the Morro Castle; not the Havana Morro, but the fortress at Santiago de Cuba, alluded to by Tom Cringle.
Why are we here?
What were we doing yesterday afternoon?