ing curse!... But, ah, ye've no souls."

He called very loudly, as if with a passionate relief, his voice giving
life to an unsuspected, misgiving echo:

"Guards! Soldiers!... You shall be shot, now!"

He was going to cut the knot that way. Two soldiers pushed the door
noisily open, their muskets advanced. He took no notice of them; and
they retained an attitude of military stupidity, their eyes upon him. He
whispered:

"No, no! Not yet!"

Then he looked at me searchingly, as if he still hoped to get some
certainty from my face, some inkling, perhaps some inspiration of what
would persuade me to speak. Then he shook his wrists violently, as if in
fear of himself.

"Take him away," he said. "Away! Out of reach of my hands. Out of reach
of my hands."

I was trembling a good deal; when the soldiers entered I thought I had
got to my last minute. But, as it was, he had not learnt a thing
from me. Not a thing. And I did not see where else he could go for
information.

CHAPTER TWO

The entrance to the common prison of Havana was a sort of lofty
tunnel, finished by great, iron-rusted, wooden gates. A civil guard was
exhibiting the judge's warrant for my committal to a white-haired man,
with a red face and blue eyes, that seemed to look through tumbled
bushes of silver eyebrows--the _alcayde_ of the prison. He bowed, and
rattled two farcically large keys. A practicable postern was ajar on the
yellow wood of the studded gates. It was as if it afforded a glimpse
of the other side of the world. The venerable turnkey, a gnome in
a steeple-crowned hat, protruded a blood-red hand backwards in the
direction of the postern.

"Senor Caballero," he croaked, "I pray you to consider this house your
own. My servants are yours."

Within was a gravel yard, shut in by portentous lead-white house-sides
with black window holes. Under each row of windows was a vast vaulted
tunnel, caged with iron bars, for all the world like beasts' dens. It
being day, the beasts were out and lounging about the _patio_. They had
an effect of infinite tranquillity, as if they were ladies and gentlemen
parading in a Sunday avenue. Perhaps twenty of them, in snowy white
shirts and black velvet knee-breeches, strutted like pigeons in a knot,
some with one woman on the arm, some with two. Bundles of variegated
rags lay against the walls, as if they were sweepings. Well, they were
the sweepings of Havana jail. The men in white and black were the gre