escape were much greater. He
was individually strong and brave, while most of his enemies were
physically but pigmies in comparison. As to their courage, he knew that
once they saw him with his hands free and armed, they would make way for
him on all sides. What he had most to fear was the bullets of their
carbines; but he had much to hope from their want of skill, and the
darkness would favour him.

For more than an hour he lay along the banqueta, turning over in his
mind the chances of regaining his liberty. His reflections were
interrupted by an unusual stir outside his prison. A fresh batch of
soldiers had arrived at the door.

Carlos' heart beat anxiously. Was it a party come to conduct him to the
Presidio? It might be so. He waited with painful impatience listening
to every word.

To his great joy it proved to be the arrival of the relief-guard; and he
had the satisfaction of hearing, by their conversation, that they had
been detailed to guard him all night in the Calabozo. This was just the
very thing he desired to know.

Presently the door was unlocked and opened, and several of the men
entered. One bore a lantern. With this they examined him--uttering
coarse and insulting remarks as they stood around. They saw that he was
securely bound! After a while all went out and left him to himself.
The door was of course re-locked, and the cell was again in perfect
darkness.

Carlos lay still for a few minutes, to assure himself they were not
going to return. He heard them place the sentries by the door, and then
the voices of the greater number seemed borne off to some distance.

Now was the time to begin his work. He hastily cast the cords from his
hands and feet, drew the long knife from his breast, and attacked the
adobe wall.

The spot he has chosen was at the corner farthest from the door, and at
the back side of the cell. He knew not what was the nature of the
ground on the other side, but it seemed most likely that which would lie
towards the open country. The Calabozo was no fortress-prison--a mere
temporary affair, used by the municipal authorities for malefactors of
the smaller kind. So much the better for his chances of breaking it.
The wall yielded easily to his knife. The adobe is but dry mud,
toughened by an admixture of grass, and although the bricks were laid to
the thickness of twenty inches or more, in the space of an hour Carlos
succeeded in cutting a hole large enough to p