Unfortunately his room was on the second floor of the hotel, and
hence his goings and comings were always open to observation. But
he noted that a window at one end of the upper hall overlooked a
sloping, tile-roofed shed, and that the garden wall behind the
hotel premises was not provided with those barbarous spikes or
broken bottles which decorate so many Cuban walls. It promised him
a means of egress when the time should come to use it. In this
hall, moreover, directly opposite his door there was an oil
bracket-lamp which gave light to the passageway, and which was
forever going out, a fact which the young man noted with
satisfaction.
One evening, several days after his arrival, a sudden rain-storm
drove O'Reilly indoors, and as he ascended to his room he saw that
the lamp in the hallway flared and smoked at every gust of wind.
It was very dark outside; he reasoned that the streets would be
deserted. Hastily securing that book which Alvarado, the dentist,
had given him, he took a position close inside his door. When he
heard the spy pass and enter the next chamber he stole out into
the hall and breathed into the lamp-chimney. A moment later he was
safely through the window and was working his way down the shed
roof, praying that his movements had not been seen and that the
tiles were firm.
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