There was a moment of silence within Mr Ambrose’s cell. I wasn’t sure whether it was a pregnant silence, yet. That depended very much on how much attention Colonel Silveira had paid to my dear employer’s nether regions.

‘I was just about to enquire how you managed to escape from your cell so quickly. However-’ Mr Ambrose’s dark eyes focused on me, boring into me, ‘-now, a slightly different question is on my mind. Why do you wish to know about the status of my reproductive organs?’

‘Call it personal curiosity.’

‘See to it that your curiosity becomes somewhat less personal, Mr Linton.’

‘Yes, Sir! Immediately, Sir!’

‘Can you open this door?’

I looked down, and got a pleasant surprise. The door didn’t actually have a lock. Apparently, Colonel Silveira never had to face the possibility of a prison break before. If he had, he’d probably have installed something a little more complex than simple bolts on the outside of his cell doors.

‘One escape coming right up, Sir!’ I hollered through the door and slid the bolt aside. A moment later I stuck my head in through the door. ‘You haven’t told me whether you still have your balls, yet.’

‘And I am not going to. Come help me untie this, now.’

He was still rubbing away at his bonds with the pottery shard. Clearing my throat, I stepped closer and held out the knife. ‘How about using this, instead?’

‘Wha-oh.’

‘Yes.’

‘Give that to me.’

‘What’s the magic word?’

‘Now!’

I looked at Mr Ambrose, and he looked right back, his dark eyes glittering dangerously in the half-light. They sent a shiver down my back that had nothing to do with the cold air down here in the dungeons. For him, that probably was the magic word. I couldn’t imagine it ever not having worked. Particularly not if the person he was talking to was of the female variety.

Blast!

I handed him the knife. Mr Ambrose snatched it up in both hands and started sawing away at the rope that bound him.

‘Where did you get the knife?’ he demanded.

‘From my jailor. A very pleasant fellow named Fidel.’

‘What? And how did you get out of the cell?’

‘Fidel left the door open for me.’

One of Mr Ambrose’s eyebrows moved up about a quarter of a millimetre. ‘This Fidel sounds like a very accommodating jailor.’

‘Oh yes, he’s a great chap! He cursed a lot and tried to stab me about a dozen times.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Indeed, Sir.’

‘Hm. We will have to discuss this at some later point in greater detail, Mr Linton. But for now, let us leave this inhospitable place.’

‘Yes, Sir! Right you are, Sir!’

His bonds falling to the floor, Mr Ambrose rose to his feet. ‘Do you know where Karim is? And our luggage, and horses?’

‘Karim is probably farther down the corridor. If I was the colonel, I’d want him locked up in the safest cell I had, behind three doors.’

‘All right. Let’s go.’

My conjecture proved justified. We found Karim several cells farther down the corridor, behind an additional door, this one with a real lock, which Mr Ambrose opened using some fiddly little metal thing he pulled from his sleeve. When we reached the second door, the one with a bolt, we heard gagging noises from inside.

‘Karim?’ Mr Ambrose called. ‘Are you in there?’

The Mohammedan’s huge beard appeared in front of the opening, replaced by his face a moment later when he bent his knees. ‘Sahib?’

‘Yes.’

‘I knew you would escape! Nothing is beyond you, Sahib.’

I cleared my throat, delicately, and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. ‘Actually, it wasn’t he who escaped. It was me.’

There was a moment of silence in the cell, this one definitely pregnant. With ugly quadruplets.

‘Sahib? Is this true?’

Mr Ambrose didn’t look at me. He stared straight ahead, his expression ten times as unreadable as ever. ‘Unfortunately, it is.’

Another moment of silence.

‘Well,’ Karim’s gruff voice finally came from beyond the door, ‘it can’t have been very difficult. I am sure anyone could manage it.’

‘Indeed?’ My voice was as sweet as solid chocolate with honey and nougat inside. ‘I notice that you are still in your cell.’

The bodyguard muttered an unintelligible curse. I was pretty good at Spanish profanities by now, and I was beginning to understand Portuguese ones, but whatever language Karim cursed in, it was none I had heard of before. It was, however, adoringly abominable.

‘I was just in the process of breaking out,’ Karim growled, clearly holding onto his temper by the skin of his teeth.

‘Indeed? And how exactly were you planning to do that?’

‘Why don’t you ask him?’ There was a thud, and suddenly, a pale, bluish face was thrust against the bars. Not Karim. Most certainly not. This man was a lot smaller, and a lot more being suffocated. The gagging noises I had heard earlier now made sense.

‘Just out of curiosity,’ I enquired. ‘Who is the man you’re strangling to death?’

‘I would be interested in that information as well,’ came Mr Ambrose’s cool voice from behind me.

‘This little haramjada is one of their torturers. The insolent imp came in here with his knives, thinking to deprive me of my manhood!’

‘Oh. Did he succeed?’ I asked hopefully. It would be an interesting experience to hear Karim sing soprano.

‘Bah! Of course not! I tore my bonds, overpowered him and told him to open the door. But he would not. He said they were bolted from the outside. So I decided to apply a little pressure.’

The face of the jailor had turned a nice shade of violet by now, and the gagging noises sounded suspiciously like the beginnings of a death rattle.

‘Yes, I can see that.’ Mr Ambrose nodded. ‘The problem is, he’s telling the truth. There really is a bolt on the door.’

‘Oh.’

‘But not for long.’ Stepping forward, my dear employer grabbed the bolt and rammed it back. I grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door wide open. Karim ducked through, without releasing his grip on the jailor.

‘You’re welcome,’ I told him with a sweet smile, which he returned with a deadly glower. Ah, friendship between colleagues was such a wonderful thing…

‘Should I kill him, Sahib?’ the Mohammedan enquired, shaking his prisoner like a ragdoll.

‘Not quite yet.’ Mr Ambrose stepped in front of the violet-faced jailor. ‘My employee is going to relax his grip on your throat now. If you try to scream, you’ll be dead before you have time to draw a breath. Understood?’

A gurgle came from the jailor’s throat which, with a lot of imagination, could be interpreted as a ‘Yes’.

‘Adequate. Let go, Karim.’

With a grunt, the bodyguard released the man’s throat. Before the choking chap could topple to the floor, however, he caught him around the middle, twisting his arms behind his back in a manner that made me wince just from looking at it.

‘Our horses. Our provisions. Where are they?’ Mr Ambrose’s voice was as hard as the stone walls around us, and considerably colder. The jailor recognised the tone of a ruthless man when he heard it.

‘Provisions…three cells down,’ he gasped. ‘Horses…in stables. Outside. I…show you.’

‘Adequate.’

‘Please…no kill me.’

‘Don’t worry. We won’t.’

My eyes darted over to Mr Ambrose, staring. What? We wouldn’t?

Karim seemed just as taken aback.

‘Gag him, Karim, and throw him in the cell.’

‘But, Sahib-’

‘Do as I say! Now!’

Not even Karim had the power to resist Mr Ambrose’s magical word. Ripping two strips of cloth from the jailor’s uniform, he stuffed one into his mouth and tied the second around his head, so his mouth was covered. With the remnants of his own bonds, he tied the man’s hands, and then solicitously placed him right on a stain of smelly mould in the corner of the cell.

‘What now?’ he demanded, stepping out of the cell and bolting the door behind him.

‘Now we get our provisions and our horses. And then we ride northeast, as planned. Let’s go!’

‘Northeast? But I thought-’

‘Silence! Let’s go!’

It took me five minutes, but by the time we had recovered our provisions and were sneaking down the corridor towards the exit, it had clicked.

‘You did that on purpose, didn’t you?’ I whispered, staring at Mr Ambrose’s back in front of me with something I’d never have let him see if we were face to face. Something suspiciously close to admiration. ‘You let that guard live, and fed him false information about the direction we were going. When the others find him, he’ll tell them everything he heard, and they will lead the chase for us into empty jungle.’

‘Quite so, Mr Linton.’

‘You, Sir, are a devious son of a bachelor.’

‘I prefer the term “seasoned tactician”, Mr Linton.’

‘Of course you do.’

‘Silence! We’re approaching the gate.’

The front door was standing open about five inches or so. Squinting, I could make out the forms of three men standing outside, their backs to us, chatting and laughing. Clearly, if they expected an attack, it wasn’t from the inside.

‘I take the one on the left,’ Mr Ambrose commanded in a whisper. ‘Karim takes the two on the right.’

‘And me?’ I demanded.

‘You take this.’ And he dumped three knapsacks full of provisions onto me. Staggering under the weight, I barely managed to remain upright. By the time I had gotten enough breath back to curse, Karim and Mr Ambrose were already outside, and I could hear the noises of a struggle. It didn’t last long. When I staggered out of the door, two men were lying limp on the ground, and Mr Ambrose had the third in a headlock, the man’s own knife at his throat.

‘You have two choices now,’ Mr Ambrose informed the wide-eyed young soldier coolly. ‘You can show us where the stables are, or you can die with a knife in your throat. Which do you prefer?’

It didn’t take the young man long to decide. He was a most intelligent fellow and directed us to the stables without once trying to run or even screaming for help. Having reached the stables, Mr Ambrose repeated his ruse from inside the prison, leaving his prisoner bound and gagged, with erroneous directions.

‘Time to go.’ Bending over, Mr Ambrose peeked out through a gap between two of the wooden boards of the stable wall. Outside, the sun was just beginning to rise, and first spears of light were stabbing through the gaps in the wood. If we hurried, we might still be able to slip away under cover of semi-darkness.

‘Anyone out there?’ I demanded.

‘A patrol just passed. I listened to the rhythm of patrols from my cell. If they don’t suddenly change the pattern for some reason, we should have five to six minutes to reach the edge of the jungle.’ Pulling his packhorse behind him, Mr Ambrose marched out of the stable with a stride so arrogant you might think he was in charge of this place. ‘Let’s go!’

We started to cross the open ground in a northeastern direction, in keeping with Mr Ambrose’s ruse. With every step we took, I sent a prayer to heaven. Please, God, ignore the fact that I don’t really believe in you and help us survive this! Please!

God apparently wasn’t feeling very charitable that day. We had just stepped into the shadow of the trees when we heard a shout behind us.

‘Ei! Você aí! Pare!’

‘I guess those aren’t wishes for a happy journey in Portuguese?’ I asked, glancing around to see several soldiers come running from the stables.

‘No! Run!’