Dacosta was confined.
The window was secured with iron bars in a miserable state of repair,
which it would be easy to tear down or cut through if they could only
get near enough. The badly jointed stones in the wall, which were
crumbled away every here and there, offered many a ledge for the feet to
rest on, if only a rope could be fixed to climb up by. One of the bars
had slipped out of its socket, and formed a hook over which it might
be possible to throw a rope. That done, one or two of the bars could be
removed, so as to permit a man to get through. Benito and Manoel would
then have to make their way into the prisoner's room, and without much
difficulty the escape could be managed by means of the rope fastened to
the projecting iron. During the night, if the sky were very cloudy, none
of these operations would be noticed before the day dawned. Joam Dacosta
could get safely away.

Manoel and Benito spent an hour about the spot, taking care not to
attract attention, but examining the locality with great exactness,
particularly as regarded the position of the window, the arrangement of
the iron bars, and the place from which it would be best to throw the
line.

"That is agreed," said Manoel at length. "And now, ought Joam Dacosta to
be told about this?"

"No, Manoel. Neither to him, any more than to my mother, ought we
to impart the secret of an attempt in which there is such a risk of
failure."

"We shall succeed, Benito!" continued Manoel. "However, we must prepare
for everything; and in case the chief of the prison should discover us
at the moment of escape----"

"We shall have money enough to purchase his silence," answered Benito.

"Good!" replied Manoel. "But once your father is out of prison he
cannot remain hidden in the town or on the jangada. Where is he to find
refuge?"

This was the second question to solve: and a very difficult one it was.

A hundred paces away from the prison, however, the waste land was
crossed by one of those canals which flow through the town into the Rio
Negro. This canal afforded an easy way of gaining the river if a pirogue
were in waiting for the fugitive. From the foot of the wall to the canal
side was hardly a hundred yards.

Benito and Manoel decided that about eight o'clock in the evening one
of the pirogues, with two strong rowers, under the command of the pilot
Araujo, should start from the jangada. They could ascend the Rio
Negro, enter the canal, and, crossing