AN: Sorry for taking so long to publish this. It's not my fault but ff's - it's been down on and off lately, so I didn't manage to publish more. I will, however, publish three chapters at once now, so at least there's that... Please do not forget to review if you like the story. I still have no idea if and how many people are reading this and knowing does help motivate me to publish faster...

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The caballero managed to pull the older man out, but the abbot was suffering from internal bleeding and knew that he had but minutes to live.

"You'll have to take my place…" he told Diego. "When I die, they will place me in a sack and take my body to the cemetery. After they sew me in, make sure to take my place… they won't check again whose body is in there… then it's a matter of digging yourself out… You can finally be free!" he coughed a little, and Diego tried to have him drink some water, which helped him regain some strength. "Take this!" the abbot continued, giving Diego his cross while also opening a secret compartment in it to reveal a folded sheet of paper. "This is my gift for you, Diego!"

"No… I need no gift. I must find a way to help with your injuries," he said, inwardly reviewing all the abbot had taught him about medicine.

"There's nothing you can do for me, young man. My time has come. But you… You can still live a good life! You can be rich, and powerful. You can find out the answers to all your questions; perhaps even still marry the woman you love… Take this cross and the map inside it! It will lead you to a treasure… A huge treasure… Hidden on the island… of Dragonera…"

"Don't talk. Save your strength, padre! Try to drink some more water!" the caballero encouraged the dying man. The abbot drank some water, yet coughed most of it out a few moments later.

"Promise that you will escape, Diego! Promise you will find the treasure and use that money to do good! To right wrongs and help others," the abbot asked of him.

The caballero hesitated, for he was not very certain he'd be able to keep any promise as things stood.

"Promise!" again the old man begged.

"I promise!" the caballero decided to say.

"And promise that, when you meet those men again, you will not seek vengeance, my son!" the dying man begged. "Vengeance destroys the soul. Be kind… Be forgiving…" he didn't have the time to see the young man making any more promises, for, with those last words, he entrusted his soul to God.

"I… will try…" Diego said as tears fell from his eyes.

He spent half an hour there, just crying, before he heard the soldier coming to give them their food. Acting as the old man had taught him, he hurried to his cell, closing the tunnel behind him. When the abbot didn't come get his food, the guardsmen opened the door and entered his cell. Finding him dead, they continued giving the food to the prisoners, then returned to the abbot's cell with a sack, placing him in it and sewing it closed.

As they left him there to also inform the Commander of the prisoner's death, Diego made his way to the dead man's cell, took him and left him in his, then sewed himself in his sack instead, hoping that the guards would not notice the fact that he was taller than the abbot had been.

The men who came to take him had no clue their dead man had been replaced, even though one mentioned he didn't expect the abbot to be as heavy as he was. Up on the prison's walls, they tied a cannonball to his legs and threw him into the sea below – the burial grounds for the forgotten souls whose lives ended in that horrible place.

Diego imagined that hitting the water from around 100 feet was probably just like hitting a brick wall at full speed. His entire body ached from the shock of it, but only for seconds, before that type of pain was replaced by the pain of the million daggers the cold water seemed to direct against him. He was freezing and falling fast, and, while he had predicted the need to have a knife on him – one the abbot had once made from a fish bone – to open the sack, he hadn't known that the cannonball would be tied to his legs with chains. His only luck was that the sack provided him with some space to free his legs once he managed to tear it away.

His heart pounding in his ears, demanding oxygen, he swam, as fast as he could, hoping for a breath of fresh air.

He reached the water's surface just before he lost consciousness, and, for a few minutes, he just breathed fresh air and marveled at the night sky.

The guards in the Chateau had no idea one of their prisoners had escaped. In fact, they only realized it about a day later, at finding the abbot dead in Diego's cell.

Taking a last look at the place, he turned the other way and swam away, as fast and as steady as he could.

His body was not what it had once been. Food deprivation, the thrashings, and the despair had taken their toll, but the digging and the exercise he had done for the last year had helped him gain muscle mass. Besides, he was still very young at 25. And, now, finally free.