After coffee and cigars, our host offers to show us the secrets of his prison-house. This time my eyes are not bandaged, and I follow the commandant without military assistance.
We are shown all over the fortifications. We inspect minutely the old-fashioned twenty-four pounders; rest on the six bronze French guns (which, we are told, are quite new, and the only serviceable weapons in the fortress), and make other observations, which, if we were enemies with an inclination to storm the place from the sea, would greatly assist us in our operations. Now we are in the sleeping caves, where the hundred men who compose the garrison are lodged. Now we are descending flights of stone steps. We pass along hollow-sounding alleys and under echoing archways. Presently we arrive at the cooking department, where the atmosphere feels oppressive, and is black with innumerable flies. We come at last to the deepest part of the fortress, where 'criminals of the worst description' (so the commandant informs me) are lodged. Narrow, intricate passages lead to the different cells. Our guide points out some of the prisoners, and invites us to look in at them through their little square windows. Strange to say, he does not seem to be at all conversant with the nature of their offences. 'Dios sabe!' accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders, is invariably the commandant's reply to any query respecting a particular prisoner. 'Dios sabe' may, however, signify a great deal more than 'Heaven knows;' and, perhaps, the commandant chooses not to explain himself.
We pause before a dungeon where it is said a Chinaman committed suicide after six days' incarceration: self-slaughter among Celestials being their favourite mode of killing care. An equally suicidal Chow-chow is confined there now; but they have bound him hand and foot, and he lies muttering in falsetto like a maniac. He would doubtless give something for a little soothing opium!
My friend the commandant assures me that the vault I am now surveying with such interest is unoccupied, and persuades me to pass on. But I linger lovingly at the little square window, and take a fond look at the interior. The theatre of my woe has changed in appearance, the company having gone. But there still remain the empty benches!
'Whom have you had within the past twelve months?' I ask.
'Dios sabe!'
It is not the commandant's business to know where his prisoners are quartered, or what becomes of them.
I apply afterwards for the same information to the captain of the garrison.
'Dios sabe!'
The staff of officers engaged in the Morro service is relieved once a month, and the captain I address has only lately taken the command.