“I bring you good news, Señores,” he said. “I have just received a visit from a young officer, who has, it appears, been making interest in your favour; and he has gained permission for your removal to a more airy abode. He seemed very anxious about you, and said he pitied you very much, though he was unable to obtain your liberty, which he wished to do. I hurried here to tell you this, as I thought it would give you pleasure. I must now go back to get the chambers ready for you, and will return with two of the under gaolers to conduct you to it. One caution I have to give you. Do not mind what I say to you before others, and never answer any of my remarks.”
Without waiting for our reply and thanks, Sancho closed the prison door, and left us to ourselves.
“We have to thank Don Eduardo for this. I am sure he is the officer Sancho spoke of,” I remarked.
“I think so also,” answered Pedro. “I am glad that he has not asked us to pass our word not to escape.”
“So am I,” I observed. “While we were on our road here, I often contemplated the possibility of getting out of prison; but then I did not expect to be put into a dungeon like this.”
For some time we could talk of nothing else but the prospect of making our escape.
Two hours or more had passed away, and Sancho had not returned. We knew that he would not willingly have deceived us, but we began to be afraid that the governor had rescinded his permission for our occupying a room open to the air, and that we might be doomed to remain in our dungeon for weeks or months longer. At last we heard footsteps approaching the cell; the door was opened, and Sancho and his two assistants appeared.
“You are to accompany me, Señores,” he said, in the gruff tone he had used at our entrance. “You are fortunate in coming out of that place alive; though some I have known would rather have had to remain there than be obliged to march out into the square yonder.”
The assistants laughed as he said this, and we soon had too great a reason to know to what he alluded. Sancho led the way with a torch in his hand; and his assistants followed, holding us tightly by the arms, as if we would have tried to escape from them. I certainly could not have done so had I tried, for when I came to mount the steps, I found my knees trembling under me from weakness, arising from being shut up so long in the damp dungeon, though I had till then thought myself as strong as ever. We traversed a number of passages, and mounted a second flight of steps, when we reached a small door plated with iron. Sancho opened it, and exhibited a room about six feet broad and eight feet long, with a window strongly barred at the further end. There were two chairs and a bedstead, with a straw mattress on it.
“Put the youngsters in there,” he said gruffly to his assistants. “It is a room fit for an hidalgo of the first order. They may see and be seen if they choose to put their noses through the gratings.”