arge apartment, containing little
furniture, but with some faded old uniforms hanging about the walls.
Evidently it was used as a barracks for soldiers. At the far end was a
door and on the side to the right were two windows.

Ned went to the window and looked out. He saw across a small court a
high and blank stone wall, but when he looked upward he saw also a patch
of sky. It was a black sky, across which clouds were driving before a
whistling wind, but it was the most beautiful sight that he had ever
seen. The sky, the free, open sky curving over the beautiful earth, was
revealed again to him who had been buried for ages in a dungeon under
the sea. He would not go back. In the tremendous uplift of feeling he
would willingly choose death first. He beckoned to White who joined him
and who looked up without being bid.

"It's out there that we're going," he said. "We'll have to cross a
stormy sea before we reach freedom, but Ned, you and I are keyed up just
high enough to cross. We'll put it to the touch and win it all. Now for
the next door."

The second door was not locked and when they pushed it open they entered
a small room, furnished handsomely in the Spanish fashion. A lamp burned
on a table, at which an officer sat looking over some papers. He heard
the two enter and it was too late for them to retreat, as he turned at
once and looked at them, inquiry in his face.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"We are the soldiers who have charge of the two Texans in the cells,"
replied Obed White boldly. "We have just taken them their food and now
we are going back to our quarters."

"I have no doubt that you tell the truth," replied the officer, "but
your voice has changed greatly since yesterday. You remember that I gave
you an order then about the man White."

"Quite true," replied Obed quickly, raising his musket and taking aim,
"and now I'm giving the order back to you. It's a poor rule that won't
work first one way and then the other. Just you move or cry out and I
shoot. I'd hate to do it, because you're not bad looking, but necessity
knows the law of self-preservation."

"You need not worry," said the officer, smiling faintly. "I will not
move, nor will I cry out. You have too great an advantage, because I see
that your aim is good and your hand steady. I surmise that you are the
man White himself."

"None other, and this is my young friend, Edward Fulton, who likes San
Juan de Ulua as a castle but not as a hotel.