the idea that this
man's companionship afforded me an opportunity to acquire a knowledge of
Spanish, which could not fail to be of service to me; and this idea I at
length with some difficulty succeeded in conveying to my smuggler
friend. He pantomimically expressed himself as charmed with the
suggestion, which he intimated might be improved upon by my undertaking
in return to teach him English; and, a satisfactory understanding being
arrived at, we commenced our studies forthwith. We were of course
utterly destitute of all aid from books, and we were therefore compelled
to fall back upon the primitive method of pointing out objects to each
other and designating them alternately in English and Spanish, each
repeating the word until the other had caught its proper pronunciation.
From this we advanced to short simple sentences, the meaning of which we
conveyed as well as we could by appropriate gestures; and though we
sometimes made the most ridiculous mistakes through misunderstanding the
meaning of those gestures, yet on the whole we managed tolerably well.
The first steps were the most difficult, but every word mastered cleared
the way to the comprehension of two or three others; so that by the time
we had been a couple of months at our studies we found ourselves making
really satisfactory progress. And when seven months had been thus
spent, though neither could speak the language of the other like a
native, each could converse in the other's language with tolerable
fluency and make himself perfectly understood. I had, long before this,
however, after considerable hesitation and cautious feeling of my
ground, broached to Miguel the question of escape, and had been
considerably chagrined to learn from him that, unless aided by friends
outside the prison, there was hardly the remotest chance of success.
The only way in which it could be done was, in his opinion, to obtain
shelter and concealment for, say a month, in some family in the
immediate neighbourhood; and _then_, when the scent had grown cold and
the zeal of the pursuers had died away, a dark night and some assistance
might enable one to get safely off the coast. If _he_ were free now, he
was good enough to say, the thing might be managed, for a consideration,
without any very great difficulty; but--a shrug of the shoulders and a
glance at the prison dress which he was condemned to wear for more than
a year longer eloquently enough closed the sentence.

Abo