“I would rather find the way out of our dominions, as you call them, than become better acquainted with them,” said Pedro. “However, I am ready to set out whenever you please.”
“We may possibly find the way out during our inspection,” I remarked, as we began slowly and cautiously to move round the walls of the cell.
It was narrow but long, and extended, as I concluded, along part of one side of the inner court. We found two other pillars towards the further end, and we felt several rings secured in the walls, with heavy chains attached to them. Of their use there could be no doubt; and we congratulated ourselves that we were still allowed to have our limbs at liberty. In our walk we stumbled over an iron bar, and our feet knocked against some other rings attached to stones sunk in the floor.
“So some of the inmates of the mansion have been chained down like maniacs to the ground,” Pedro observed. “We are indeed fortunate in escaping such treatment.”
Though we searched most minutely, we could discover nothing which might suggest any means of escaping. We had just concluded an examination, and had returned to our seats, when the door of the dungeon was opened, and the gaoler appeared, bringing a jar of water and two loaves of brown bread.
Pedro examined his countenance. “Stop,” he exclaimed, as the man was going away; “Sancho Lopez, I do believe you are an old friend of mine.”
“In truth yes, and you saved my life,” answered the gaoler. “But I must not stop—but I must not stop. Be at rest, I do not forget the matter.”
Pedro afterwards told me how he had saved the Spanish gaoler’s life in a snow-storm in the mountains, and we agreed that it was a great thing to have him as our friend.
We had been in the dungeon about a fortnight, and though it was damp and unwholesome in the extreme, we did not appear to have suffered in health.
One morning Sancho entered our cell with a cheerful countenance.