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The distance to be traversed was, in a straight line, about ten miles, so Carera told me; but we must have passed over fully forty miles of ground in following the windings of this exasperating channel, for it was two o'clock in the afternoon when we reached the entrance to the Conconil lagoons.
It was my last chance. If it failed me, or the man turned out to be a priest and nothing more, my hours were numbered. The time was too short to arrange any other plan. Would he bring with him a file and a cord? Even if he did, we could hardly hope to cut through the bars before daylight. And, most important consideration of all, how would Carera contrive to send me the right man?
Next morning at daybreak we were aroused by Carera, who requested us to put in an appearance on deck as soon as possible, as we were off the mouth of the Barcos Channel and he wished to run in with the first of the sea-breeze.
Those pestilent British cruisers are interfering with him, and we know that when they meddle with a business of that kind it means simple ruination for the honest people who are trying to make a livelihood out of it; consequently, our amigo Carera is no longer able to depend upon finding a rich cargo, at a low figure for cash, awaiting him at Giuseppe's snug little stronghold.
It was some time before we could get the poor man quieted; and when at length he was stretched along a bench, and the fire stirred up, and new wood added to it, the fresh air of early morning began to be scented. At this time we missed Padre Carera, and, in truth, we all fell fast asleep; but in about an hour or so afterwards, I was awoke by some one stepping across me.
"I am greatly indebted to you and Señor Carera more than I can say. You are risking your lives to save mine." "That is nothing, my dear sir. I often risk my life twenty times in a day. And what matters it? We are all under sentence of death. A few years and there will be an end of us." Salvador Carmen may have been twenty-six or twenty-eight years old.
For some seconds we stared at each other in blank amazement. I could see that though he recognized me, he was trying to make believe that he did not; or, perhaps, he really doubted whether I was the man I seemed. "That is my sword," I said, pointing to the weapon by his side, which had been given to me by Carera. "Your sword! What do you mean?"
These articles were at once passed over the side into the boat, and as soon as she was loaded with as much as she could safely carry, Carera and a couple of his most trusted hands jumped into her and pulled ashore.
Once through this passage we found ourselves in an extensive sheet of water an immense lagoon, in fact which Carera informed me was known as Santa Clara Bay; and it is at the bottom of this bay that the Conconil lagoons, to which we were bound, is situated. And here our difficulties may be said to have fairly commenced.
We were consequently quite as averse to a visit from the frigate as was Carera himself, and we at once set our wits to work to see if it might not be possible to devise some means of escape.
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