'So be it, Teule, and now farewell, for I dare stay no longer. I can
do nothing more. May your good star shine on you and lead you hence
in safety; and Teule, if we never meet again, I pray you think of me
kindly, for there are many in the world who will do otherwise in the
days to come.'

'Farewell, Marina,' I said, and she was gone.

We heard the doors close behind her, and the distant voices of those who
bore her litter, then all was silence. Otomie listened at the window for
a while, but the guards seemed to be gone, where or why I do not know to
this hour, and the only sound was that of distant revelry from the camp.

'And now to the work,' I said to Otomie.

'As you wish, husband, but I fear it will be profitless. I do not trust
that woman. Faithless in all, without doubt she betrays us. Still at the
worst you have the sword, and can use it.'

'It matters little,' I answered. 'Our plight cannot be worse than it is
now; life has no greater evils than torment and death, and they are with
us already.'

Then I sat upon the stool, and my arms being left sound and strong, I
hacked with the sharp sword at the wooden bars of the window, severing
them one by one till there was a space big enough for us to creep
through. This being done and no one having appeared to disturb us,
Otomie clad me in the clothes of a Spanish soldier which Marina had
brought, for I could not dress myself. What I suffered in the donning of
those garments, and more especially in the pulling of the long boot
on to my burnt foot, can never be told, but more than once I stopped,
pondering whether it would not be better to die rather than to endure
such agonies. At last it was done, and Otomie must put on the red and
yellow robe, a garb of shame such as many honest Indian women would die
sooner than be seen in, and I think that as she did this, her agony was
greater than mine, though of another sort, for to her proud heart, that
dress was a very shirt of Nessus. Presently she was clad, and minced
before me with savage mockery, saying:

'Prithee, soldier, do I look my part?'

'A peace to such fooling,' I answered; 'our lives are at stake, what
does it matter how we disguise ourselves?'

'It matters much, husband, but how can you understand, who are a man and
a foreigner? Now I will clamber through the window, and you must
follow me if you can, if not I will return to you and we will end this
masquerade.'

Then she passed through the hole