Martin Conisby

Now here, seeing me lie thus deject and forlorn, he stooped and set his ragged arm about me.

"Grieve not, Martin," said he in strange, glad voice, "grieve not, for in losing so much you have surely found a greater thing. Here, in this dread place, you have found your soul."

And presently, sheltered in the frail arm of the man had been my bitter enemy, I took comfort and fell to sweet and dreamless slumber.

Another day had dragged its weary length: Sir Richard lay asleep, I think, and I, gloomy and sullen, lay watching the light fade beyond the grating in the wall when; catching my breath, I started and peered up, misdoubting my eyes, for suddenly, 'twixt the bars of this grating, furtive and silent crept a hand that opening, let fall something white and shapeless that struck the stone floor with a sharp, metallic sound, and vanished stealthily as it had come. For a while I stared up at this rusty grating, half-fearing I was going mad at last, yet when I thought to look below, there on the floor lay the shapeless something where it had fallen. With every nerve a-thrill I rose and creeping thither, took it up and saw it was Adam's chart, the which had been taken from me, with all else I possessed; this wrapped about a key and a small, sharp knife; on the back of which, traced in a scrawling hand, I read these words, viz: "A key to your fetters. A knife to your release. Once free of your dungeon take every passage Bearing to the left; so shall you reach the postern. There one shall wait, wearing a white scarf. Follow him and God speed you. You will be visited at sunset."

To be lifted thus from blackest despair to hope's very pinnacle wrought on me so that I was like one entranced, staring down at knife and paper and key where they had fallen from my nerveless hold; then, catching up the knife, I stood ecstatic to thumb over point and edge and felt myself a man once more, calm and resolute, to defy every inquisitor in Spanish America, and this merely by reason of the touch of this good steel, since here was a means whereby (as a last resource) I might set myself safe beyond their devilish torments once and for all. And now my soul went out in passionate gratitude to Don Federigo since this (as I judged) must be of his contrivance.

But the shadows deepening warned me that the sun had set wherefore I slipped off my shoes as softly as possible not to disturb Sir Richard's slumbers, and made me ready to kill or be killed.