Springing from the bed, he just glanced at his softly breathing
companion as he ran out to look once more in the direction taken by the
girl.
Then he stepped back again in the hope that she might have returned
during the night and brought some bread; but all was still, and not a
sign of anybody having been there.
Pen's heart sank.
"Grasping at shadows," he muttered. "Here have I been wasting time over
sleep instead of hunting for food."
Ignorant for the time being of the cause of the wretched feeling of
depression which now stole over him, and with no friendly voice at hand
to say, "Heart sinking? Despondent? Why, of course you are ready to
think anything is about to occur now that you are literally starving!"
Pen had accepted the first ill thought that had occurred to him, and
this was that his companion had turned worse in the night and was dying.
Bending over the poor fellow once more, he thrust a hand within the
breast of his shirt, and his spirits sank lower, for there was no
regular throbbing beat in response, for the simple reason that in his
hurry and confusion of intellect he had not felt in the right place.
"Oh!" he gasped, and his own voice startled him with its husky,
despairing tone, while he bent lower, and it seemed to him that he could
not detect the boy's breath playing upon his cheek.
"Oh, what have I done?" he panted, and catching at the boy's shoulders
he began to draw him up into a sitting position, with some wild idea
that this would enable him to regain his breath.
But the next moment he had lowered him back upon the rough pallet, for a
cry Punch uttered proved that he was very much alive.
"I say," he cried, "whatcher doing of? Don't! You hurt?"
"Oh, Punch," cried Pen, panting hard now, "how you frightened me!"
"Why, I never did nothink," cried the boy in an ill-used tone.
"No, no. Lie still. I only thought you were getting worse. You were
so still, and I could not hear you breathe."
"But you shouldn't," grumbled the wounded boy surlily, as he screwed
first one shoulder up to his ear and then the other. "Hff! You did
hurt! What did you expect? Think I ought to be snoring? I say,
though, give a fellow some more of that milk, will you? I'm thirsty.
Couldn't you get some bread--not to eat, but to sop in it?"
"I don't think I could eat anything, but--" The boy stopped short as he
lay passing his tongue over his fever-cracked lips, for the doorway of
the miserable cabin was suddenly darkened, and Pen sprang round to find
himself face to face with his visitor of the previous evening, who stood
before him with the wooden vessel in one hand and a coarse-looking
bread-cake in the other.
She looked searchingly and suspiciously at Pen for a few moments; and
then, as if seeing no cause for fear, she stepped quickly in, placed the
food she had brought upon the rough shelf, and then bent over Punch and
laid one work-roughened hand upon the boy's forehead, while he stared up
at her wonderingly.
The girl turned to look round at Pen, and uttered a few words hurriedly
in her Spanish patois. Then, as if recollecting herself, she caught the
bread-cake from where she had placed it, broke a piece off, and put it
in the young rifleman's hand, speaking again quickly, every word being
incomprehensible, though her movements were plain enough as she signed
to him to eat.
"Yes, I know what you mean," said Pen smiling; "but I want the bread for
him," and he pointed to the wounded boy.
The peasant-girl showed on the instant that though she could not
understand the stranger's words his signs were clear enough. She broke
off another piece of the bread and took down the little wooden-handled
pail, which was half-full of warm milk. This she held up to Pen, and
signed to him to drink; but he shook his head and pointed to Punch.
This produced a quick, decisive nod of the head, as the girl wrinkled up
her forehead and signed in an insistent way that Pen should drink first.
He obeyed, and then the girl seated herself upon the bed and began to
sop pieces of the bread and hold them to Punch's lips.
"Thenkye," he said faintly, and for the first time for many days the boy
showed his white teeth, as he smiled up in their visitor's face. "'Tis
good," he said, and his lips parted to receive another fragment of the
milk-softened bread, which was given in company with a bright girlish
smile and a few more words.
"I say," said Punch, slowly turning his head from side to side, "I
suppose you can't understand plain English, can you?"
The girl's voice sounded very pleasant, as she laughingly replied.
"Ah," said Punch, "and I can't understand plain Spanish. But I know
what you mean, and I will try to eat.--'Tis good. Give us a bit more."
For the next ten minutes or so the peasant-girl remained seated upon the
bedside attending to the wounded boy, breaking off the softer portions
of the cake, soaking them in the warm milk, and placing them to the
sufferer's lips, and more than once handing portions of the cake to Pen
and giving him the clean wood vessel so that he might drink, while the
sun lit up the interior of the hut and lent a peculiar brightness to the
intently gazing eyes of its three occupants, till the rustic breakfast
came to an end, this being when Punch kept his lips closed, gazed up
straight in the girl's face, and smiled and shook his head.
"Good!" said the girl in her native tongue, and she nodded and laughed
in satisfaction before playfully making believe to close the boy's eyes,
and ending by keeping her hand across the lids so that he might
understand that he was now to sleep.
To this Punch responded by taking the girl's hand in his and holding it
for a few moments against his cheek before it was withdrawn, when the
poor wounded lad turned his face away so that no one should see that a
weak tear was stealing down his sun-browned cheek.
But the girl saw it, and her own eyes were wet as she turned quickly to
Pen, pointed to the bread and milk, signed to him that he should go on
eating, and then hurried out into the bright sunshine, Pen following, to
see that she was making straight for the waterfall.
The next minute she had disappeared amongst the trees.
"Well, Punch," cried Pen, as he stepped back to the hut, "feel better
for your breakfast?"
"Better? Yes, of course. But I say, she didn't see me snivelling, did
she?"
"Yes, I think so; and it made her snivel too, as you call it. Of course
she was sorry to see you so weak and bad."
"Ah!" said Punch, after a few moments' silence, during which he had lain
with his eyes shut.
"What is it? Does your wound hurt you?"
"No; I forgot all about it. I say, I should like to give that girl
something, because it was real kind of her; but I ain't got nothing but
a sixpence with a hole in it, and she wouldn't care for that, because
it's English."
"Well, I don't know, Punch. I dare say she would. A good-hearted girl
like that wouldn't look upon its value, but would keep it out of
remembrance of our meeting."
"Think so?" said Punch eagerly, and with his eyes sparkling. "Oh, don't
I wish I could talk Spanish!"
"Oh, never mind that," said Pen. "Think about getting well. But, all
the same, I wish I could make her understand so that she could guide me
to where our fellows are."
"Eh?" cried the boy eagerly. "You ain't a-going to run away and leave
me here, are you?"
"Is it likely, Punch?"
"Of course not," cried the boy. "Never you mind what I say. I get
muddly and stupid in my head sometimes, and then I say things I don't
mean."
"Of course you do; I understand. It's weakness," said Pen cheerily;
"but you are getting better."
"Think so, comrade? You see, I ain't had no doctor."
"Yes, you have. Nature's a fine doctor; and if we can keep in hiding
here a few days more, and that girl will keep on bringing us bread and
milk, you will soon be in marching order; so we are not going to be in
the dumps. We will find our fellows somehow."
"To be sure we will," said Punch cheerfully, as he wrenched himself a
little over, wincing with pain the while.
"What is it, Punch? Wound hurt you again?"
"Yes; horrid," said the boy with a sigh.
"Then, why don't you lie still? You should tell me you wanted to move."
"Yes, all right; I will next time. It did give me a stinger. Sets a
fellow thinking what some of our poor chaps must feel who get shot down
and lie out in the mountains without a comrade to help them--a comrade
like you. I shall never--"
"Look here, Punch," interrupted Pen, "I don't like butter."
"I do," said the boy, with his eyes dancing merrily. "Wished I had had
some with that bread's morning."
"Now, you know what I mean," cried Pen; "and mind this, if you get
talking like that to me again I will go off and leave you."
"Ha, ha!" said the boy softly, "don't believe you. All right then, I
won't say any more if you don't like it; but I shall think about it all
the more."
"There you go again," cried Pen. "What is it you want? What are you
trying to get? You are hurting yourself again."
"Oh, I was only trying to get at that there sixpence," said the poor
fellow, with a dismal look in his face. "I'm half-afraid it's lost.--
No, it ain't! I just touched it then."
"Then don't touch it any more."
"But I want it."
"No, you don't, not till that girl comes; and you had better keep it
till we say good-bye."
"Think so?" said Punch.
Pen nodded.
"You think she will come again, then?"
"She is sure to."
"Ah," said Punch, rather drowsily now, "I say, how nice it feels for any
one to be kind to you when you are bad."
"Very," said Pen thoughtfully. "Pain gone off?"
"Yes; I am all right now. Think she will come back soon?"
"No, not for hours and hours."
"Oh, I say, Pen. Think it would be safe for me to go to sleep?"
"Yes, quite."
"Then I think I will, for I feel as if I could sleep for a week."
"Go to sleep then. It's the best thing you can do."
"Well, I will. Only, promise me one thing: if she comes while I'm
asleep, I--I--want you--promise--promise--wake--"
"Poor fellow!" said Pen, "he's as weak as weak. But that breakfast has
been like life to him. Well, there's some truth in what they say, that
when things come to the worst they begin to mend."
A few minutes later, after noting that his poor wounded comrade had sunk
into a deep sleep, Pen stole gently out among the trees, keeping a sharp
lookout for danger as he swept the slopes of the valley in search of
signs of the enemy, for he felt that it was too much to hope for the
dark-green or scarlet of one of their own men.
But the valley now seemed thoroughly deserted, and a restful feeling
began to steal through the lad's being, for everything looked peaceful
and beautiful, and as if the horrors of war had never visited the land.
The sun was rising higher, and he was glad to take shelter beneath the
rugged boughs of a gnarled old cork-tree, where he stood listening to
the low, soft, musical murmur of the fall. And as he pictured the
clear, bright, foaming water flashing back the sun's rays, and in
imagination saw the shadowy forms of the trout darting here and there,
he took a step or two outward, but checked himself directly and turned
back to where he could command the door of the hut, for a feeling of
doubt crossed his mind as to what might happen if he went away; and
before long he stole back to the side of the rough pallet, where he
found Punch sleeping heavily, feeling, as he seated himself upon a rough
stool, that he could do nothing more but wait and watch. But it was
with a feeling of hope, for there was something to look forward to in
the coming of the peasant-girl.
"And that can't be for hours yet," thought the lad; and then his mind
drifted off to England, and the various changes of his life, and the
causes of his being there. And then, as he listened to the soft hum of
insect-life that floated through the open door, his eyelids grew heavy
as if he had caught the drowsy infection from his companion. Weak as he
was from light feeding, he too dropped asleep, so that the long, weary
time that he had been wondering how he should be able to pass was but as
a minute, for the sun was setting when he next unclosed his eyes, to
meet the mirthful gaze of Punch, who burst into a feeble laugh as he
exclaimed, "Why, you have been asleep!"