I knew the voice, though the cowl, in the gloom of the cell, prevented me from seeing my visitor’s features.
“What, Padre Pacheco!” I exclaimed. “My dear padre! how could you have risked your safety by coming here?”
“For your sake, Barry, I would go through much greater danger,” he answered. “I followed you to this place, being resolved to attempt your liberation; and I have heard all about you from our friend the doctor. It being reported that you and others are to be put to death to-morrow, on finding that he would not be allowed to visit you again I boldly came to the prison, letting the jailer suppose that the commandant had sent for me to shrive you. He at once admitted me; and here I am to tell you that your friend the English captain will send a boat in to-night at eleven o’clock, when all the garrison, with the exception of the guards, will be asleep. The doctor will come to visit his patients late in the day, and will then find out who is to be on guard, and will do his best to give them sleeping potions, so that you may boldly pass between them and scramble over the wall. I do not, therefore, consider that you will have to run any great risk.”
The padre talked on in a low voice. When I expressed my fears that he would compromise his own safety, he answered that as soon as he knew that I had escaped he intended to get away, if possible, on board the Flying Fish, and that he had engaged a boat to take him off. This much relieved my mind.
We were still conversing when we heard the jailer turn the key in the lock. On this the padre got up and went towards the door. “He has made as good a confession as I could have expected,” he observed to the jailer as he went out; “I hope, my friend, you will be as prepared to die, when your time comes, as he is.”
I was after this left alone for the greater part of the day; and towards evening the jailer brought me some more food. I was very thankful to see his back as he went out, and heartily trusted that I might never set eyes on him again.
I could only calculate the time by hearing the guards changed. At last, believing that it was nearly eleven o’clock, I prepared for my adventure. Putting up my bedstead as before, I climbed to the window, from which I noiselessly removed the bar; then getting outside, I replaced it, and dropped a height of ten feet or so into a sort of inner ditch. It was perfectly dry, and as the ground was hard I felt somewhat shaken; but recovering myself, I crawled along till I could mount the bank at a spot whence I could observe the sentries on either side. One, as he did not move, had, as I hoped, taken the doctor’s potion; but the other still walked backwards and forwards, evidently wide-awake. At last he sat down, and as I watched him I saw that he was overcome with drowsiness. I at once crept across the intervening space, and gained the top of the wall without being seen. Glancing downwards, the height appeared considerable; but hesitation might prove my destruction, so throwing myself over, I dropped a height of not much under thirty feet,—happily alighting on the soft sand which the doctor had told me of.
I had still some distance to run along the beach: on I went, hoping that the two sentries would not awake till I had gained the shelter of some rocks. I then stopped an instant to ascertain whether I was taking the right direction. There was sufficient light to enable me to discern the point where the boat was to meet me. No noises proceeded from the fort. I made my way among the rocks with caution, to avoid the risk of slipping down and hurting myself; and at length, to my infinite satisfaction, I heard Captain Longswill’s voice.
“All right, Barry,” he said; “we are here. Give me your hand, and I will show you the boat.”
Never did I more thankfully grasp a man’s hand; and in a few seconds I was seated in the stern-sheets of his boat, and we were pulling off for the Flying Fish, which lay in the offing.