few months while they were working on this. It was a convenience both to
them and to me."

"And is also a convenience to me," smiled Carlo, who was beginning to
recover from his terror.

"But I don't quite understand yet how we are to get out of here except
by going back the way we came," said Gabilonda.

"Which for some of us might prove a dangerously unhealthy journey. True,
colonel, and therefore one to be avoided." Megales stepped to the wall,
spanned with his fingers a space from the floor above a joint in the
masonry, and pressed against the concrete. Inch by inch the wall fell
back and opened into a lower corridor of the prison, the very one indeed
which led to the cell in which Bucky and his love were imprisoned.
Cautiously the Spaniard's glance traveled down the passage to see it was
empty before he opened the panel door more than enough to look through.
Then he beckoned to Gabilonda. "Behold, doubting Thomas!"

The warden gasped. "And I never knew it, never had a suspicion of it."

"But this only brings us from one prison to another," objected the
general. "We might be penned in here as well as at the castle."

"Even that contingency has been provided for. You noticed, perhaps,
where the tunnel forked. The left branch runs down to the river-wash,
and by ten minutes' digging with the tools lying there one can force an
exit."

"Your excellency is certainly a wonder, and all this done without
arousing the least suspicion of anybody," admired the warden.

"The wise man, my dear colonel, prepares for emergencies; the fool
trusts to his luck," replied the governor dryly.

"Are we to stay here for the present, colonel?" broke in the governor's
daughter. "And can you furnish accommodations for the rest of us if we
stay all night, as I expect we must?"

"My dear senorita, I have accommodations and to spare. But the trouble
is that your presence would become known. I should be the happiest'
man alive to put my all at the accommodation of Chihuahua's fairest
daughter. But if it should get out that you are here--" Gabilonda
stopped to shrug his fat shoulders at the prospect.

"We shall have to stay here, or, at least, in the lower tier of cells.
I'm sorry, Carmencita, but there is no other course compatible with
safety," decided Megales promptly.

The warden's face cleared. "That is really not a point for me to decide,
governor. This young American, O'Connor, is now in charge of the prison.
I must release hi