After examining me in the usual way, the physician inquires whether my head throbs without aching; whether I am troubled with certain pains in my joints and across my loins, and whether I feel altogether as if I had been confined several weeks to my bed.
Marvelling much at the doctor's penetration, I reply that the symptoms he described exactly correspond with those which I experience. In short; Don Francisco is perfectly acquainted with the nature of my malady. Strange to say, however, he does not venture to give it a name, and stranger still, he leads my partner into our studio, where with closed doors both converse like a couple of assassins conspiring against my life. What passes between them is not revealed to me, but after the doctor's departure, my companion assures me I have only caught a severe cold, and that if I remain 'under cover,' I shall be perfectly well in six days.
Why in six days? While pondering much over this, a strange heat oppresses me; my head throbs more than ever; my pains increase, and to add to my discomfiture, Nicasio, together with Don Benigno and our black attendant, suddenly begin to dance furiously around my 'catre,' terminating their wild gyrations by vanishing between the bars of the grated window!
My friends were doubtless afraid of the commandant of the Morro and her Majesty's British consul; for these gentlemen have entered the apartment and established themselves on either side of my catre. The commandant, claiming me for his prisoner, again attempts to carry me off to the Morro Castle, but my consul envelopes me in an enormous Union Jack, and declaring that I am a British subject, dares the Spanish officer to lay a finger on me. The commandant now draws his sword--a weapon of such monstrous length that it cannot be conveniently unsheathed without detaching the scabbard from the belt from which it depends. The consul in turn exhibits a mighty scroll of parchment, which takes as long to unroll as the officer's sabre takes to unsheath. Meanwhile I watch the combatants in agonising suspense, till the chamber becomes suddenly dark. But, after a painful pause, daylight appears, and to my unspeakable relief I find that my formidable visitors have vanished, and that I am alone with Nicasio.