That same day Alloy was replaced in the command of the fortress by the Irish Colonel of the Ultonian regiment; the corsair left for a fresh cruise, taking away Pablo Blanco; and I became once more the roving merchant from Schwekat.

From the windmill, where we underwent our quarantine, I could see the tricoloured flag flying on the fortress of Figueras.  The reconnoitring parties of the cavalry came sometimes within five or six hundred metres; it would not then have been difficult for me to escape.  However, as the regulations against those who violate the sanitary laws are very rigorous in Spain, as they pronounce the penalty of death against him who infringes them, I only determined to make my escape on the eve of our admission to pratique.

The night being come I crept on all-fours along the briars, and I should soon have got beyond the line of sentinels who guarded us.  A noisy uproar which I heard among the Moors made me determine to reenter, and I found these poor people in an unspeakable state of uneasiness, thinking themselves lost if I left; I therefore remained.

The next day a strong picquet of troops presented itself before the mill.  The manoeuvres made by it inspired all of us with anxiety, but especially Captain Krog.[3] “What will they do with us?” he exclaimed.  “Alas! you will see only too soon,” replied the Spanish officer.  This answer made every one believe that they were going to shoot us.  What might have strengthened me in this idea was the obstinacy with which Captain Krog and two other individuals of small size hid themselves behind me.  A handling of arms made us think that we had but a few seconds to live.

In analyzing the feelings which I experienced on this solemn occasion, I have come to the conclusion that the man who is led to death is not as unhappy as the public imagines him to be.  Fifty ideas presented themselves nearly simultaneously to my mind, and I did not rack my brain for any of them; I only recollect the two following, which have remained engraved on my memory.  On turning my head to the right, I saw the national flag flying on the bastions of Figueras, and I said to myself, “If I were to move a few hundred metres, I should be surrounded by comrades, by friends, by fellow citizens, who would receive me affectionately.  Here, without their being able to impute any crime to me, I am going to suffer death at twenty-two years of age.”  But what agitated me more deeply was this:  looking towards the Pyrenees, I could distinctly see their peaks, and I reflected that my mother, on the other side of the chain, might at this awful moment be looking peaceably at them.

The Spanish authorities, finding that to redeem my life I would not declare myself the owner of the vessel, had us conducted without farther molestation to the fortress of Rosas.  Having to file through nearly all the inhabitants of the town, I had wished at first, through a false feeling of shame, to leave in the mill the remains of our week’s meals.  But M. Berthemie, more prudent than I, carried over his shoulder a great quantity of pieces of black bread, tied up with packthread.  I imitated him.  I furnished myself famously from our old stock, set it on my shoulder, and it was with this accoutrement that I made my entrance into the famous fortress.