hite flag and hoist the Spanish ensign at the peak; and the
surviving officers--five of us in number--were then mustered and ordered
into one of the boats alongside. We were compelled to bundle down over
the side just as we were, without a single personal belonging, or
article of clothing except what we stood in; and, the boat being manned
by some twenty as bloodthirsty-looking desperadoes as I ever clapped
eyes on, we were forthwith pulled ashore and at once marched off to
prison.

It was dark by the time that we reached the harbour; we were
consequently unable to see much of the place that night beyond the fact
that it lay at the base of a lofty range of hills. We were received at
the landing-place by a party of soldiers with fixed bayonets, who had
evidently been awaiting our arrival, and, escorted by them, we arrived--
after a march of about a mile--at the gates of a most forbidding-looking
edifice constructed of heavy blocks of masonry, and which had all the
appearance of being a fortress. Passing through the gloomy gateway--
which was protected by a portcullis--we found ourselves in a large open
paved courtyard, across which we marched to a door on the opposite side.
Entering this door, we wheeled to the right and passed along a wide
stone passage which conducted us to a sort of guard-room. We were here
received by a lanky, cadaverous-looking individual with a shrivelled
yellow parchment skin, hands like the claws of a vulture, piercing black
eyes, and grizzled locks and moustache, who, with but scant courtesy,
took down the name and rank of each of us in a huge battered volume;
after which we were conducted through another long echoing passage, and
finally ushered into a sort of hall, about sixty feet long by forty feet
wide, with a lofty stone groined roof, and six high, narrow, lancet-
shaped windows in each of the two longer walls. These windows we
subsequently found were closely grated on the outside with heavy iron
bars. The moment that we crossed the threshold the heavy oaken door was
closed and barred upon us, and we were left to shift for ourselves as
best we could.

The first thing of which I was distinctly conscious on entering the hall
was the volume of sound which echoed from the walls and the groined
roof. Singing, laughter, conversation, altercation were all going on at
the same moment at the utmost pitch of the human voice, and apparently
with the whole strength of the assembled company, wh