se had not
slipped or caught with sufficient rapidity, and escaping the soldier's
neck, it only grasped and secured his _chako_ and musket. In an
instant, I saw the fatal misfortune, and, clearing the weapon, dropped
it, _plumb_, on the head of the tipsy and terrified guardsman. Its
fall must have stunned and prostrated the poor fellow, for not a word
or groan escaped from the court-yard.

CHAPTER XLIX.

Silent as was the sentinel after the restoration of his musket, it
was, nevertheless, unanimously voted that our enterprise was a
failure. Accordingly, the bar was replaced, the window closed, our
implements stowed in the mattresses, and ourselves packed beneath the
blankets, in momentary expectation of a visit from the jailer and
military commander. We passed the night in feverish expectation, but
our bolts remained undrawn.

Bright and early, with a plenteous breakfast, appeared our spirited
Spaniards, and, as the turnkey admitted and locked them in, they burst
into a fit of uproarious laughter at our maladroit adventure. The poor
sentinel, they said, was found, at the end of his watch, stretched on
the ground in a sort of fainting fit and half frozen. He swore, in
accounting for a bleeding skull, that an invisible hand from the
store-room beneath us, had dealt him a blow that felled him to the
earth! His story was so silly and maudlin, that the captain of the
guard, who remembered the festival and knew the tipsiness of the
entire watch, gave no heed to the tale, but charged it to the account
of New Year and _eau de vie_. We were sadly jeered by the lasses for
our want of pluck, in forsaking the advantage fortune had thrown in
our way, and I was specially charged to practise my hand more
carefully with the _lazo_, when I next got a chance on the
plantations of Cuba, or among the _vaqueros_ of Mexico.

As we expected the daily visit from the punctual inspector, to try our
bars with his iron rod, we hastened to secure our window, and stuffing
all the fissures with straw and rags, so as almost to exclude light,
we complained bitterly to the official of the cold wind to which the
apertures exposed us, and thus prevented him from touching the sash.
Besides this precaution, we thought it best to get rid of our tools
and cord in the same way we received them; and thus terminated our
project of escape.

Soon after, I heard from a relative in Paris, that my petition had
been presented to Louis Philippe, whose re