mselves at the
gurgling sound of the wine, as it was decanted into cups made of the
large end of an ox's horn, scraped thin, and capable of containing a
pint or more. Isabella dexterously poured the contents of the phial into
a cup, which was filled with wine, and Morton, taking it in his hand,
approached the corporal with a nod of invitation. After holding it to
his lips for some time, as if taking a deep draught, he passed it to the
corporal; that officer, touching his cap _a la militaire_, drank and
passed the horn, according to South American custom, to his comrades.
The prisoners and Isabella watched its circulation with most painful
anxiety, and soon had the felicity of beholding it turned bottom upwards
over the mouth of the sentry at the door. Another bottle was opened, and
poured, unobserved by the soldiers, into another cup, which, being
handed to the sailors, was almost immediately passed back again, "a body
without a soul." Another cup, medicated like the first, was prepared,
and the prisoners, apparently busied with their supper, awaited with
trepidation the effect of the medicine.

After the lapse of fifteen or twenty minutes, which seemed as many hours
to the prisoners, the corporal betrayed palpable symptoms of somnolency.
He had seated himself with his back to the wall, and his feet towards a
small fire that was kept burning in the middle of the guard-room every
night, to drive away the moschetoes, and had commenced a song, in a low
voice. The first stanza he managed very respectably; but, before he had
half finished the second, both the air and words seemed strangely
deranged; his head sank upon his breast, and he snored repeatedly,
instead of singing; he made an effort to arouse himself, uttered that
ejaculation common to all ranks and both sexes of Spaniards, but which
is too gross to be written, and, stretching himself at full length upon
the floor, was sound asleep in an instant. His three comrades were not
slow in following his example; wrapped in their _ponchos_, or South
American cloaks, they "took ground" around the fire, and were soon
asleep.

The sentry at the door, after two or three times stumbling over his own
feet, and as often dropping his musket out of his arms from mere
drowsiness, came into the guard-room to light a segar, which he
eventually accomplished at the imminent risk of pitching head foremost
into the fire. He resumed his station at the door, but was too sleepy
to walk on h