'We've won,' he cried, with a wild look in his eyes. 'I've done my bit,
too.' He raised himself to his feet, and would have fallen if I hadn't
caught him and lowered him on his mattress.
I heard shouts of '_Don Geraldio!_' '_Viva los Horizontals!_' and
looking over into the road, saw dear old Gerald stalking along smoking
his pipe, making big strides over dead men and horses, and Jose, in his
red sash, leading his horse behind him. I ran down to meet him as he
came up the steps.
'We've won, Gerald!' I sang out.
'You've made a beastly mess of the Casino, Billums; I hope no one has
collared the mater's bag,' was the only thing he said.
Well, that finished the 'Two Days' Fight' as it was called; Gerald's
chaps were too worn out and too short of ammunition to follow Zorilla
immediately, and gave him time to withdraw, with the remnant of his
people, along the road to El Castellar.
Jones and Richardson came along presently with their two pom-poms and
five or six hundred riflemen they had brought from San Fernando. They
were awfully full of 'buck.'
'We frightened those cavalry chaps with our shells, and these little
brownies stopped them with their rifles,' they told us, as we all
carried Seymour down from the roof and put him in his buggy, which
turned up from somewhere or other.
They took him back--very slowly and gently--to San Fernando, and
intended to take him on board the _Hector_.
'Thank God, you came!' I said. 'You were just in time.'
He smiled wildly, wanted to say something, but didn't, and was taken
away.
And now came the saddest of all things, for the wounded began to creep
out of the forest and make their way to the Casino or be carried
there--hundreds of them--and there wasn't a piece of lint or a bandage
in the place. They simply squatted down and waited--for what I don't
know. I got a good many of them water from the Casino well, and they
were very grateful, but I couldn't do anything else.
I missed Gerald, went in search of him in the Casino, heard the noise of
splashing water, and found him having a cold bath, Jose standing by to
rub him down.
'Only thing which keeps me awake, Billums,' he laughed. 'I've given my
chaps a couple of hours' sleep, and shall follow Zorilla as soon as
those field-guns you took into San Fernando come along. I've sent for
them.'
'They don't seem to be going to sleep yet,' I said, for there was any
amount of noise outside and shouting of '_Viva Don Geraldio! Viva los
Inglesas!_'
'They want me, I expect,' he said; 'chuck us a towel, Billums,' and,
winding it round him, he went out. He still had a nasty scar on the
right arm--where that bit of shell had hit him a month ago.
'Tidy your yellow mop a bit,' I sang out, 'it's all over your eyes,' so
he smoothed it back and went out on the balcony overlooking the road.
My aunt! there must have been thousands of the little brown men and
their black-bearded officers there, and they made a tremendous noise,
shouting, '_Viva Yuesencia Don Geraldio!_'
I was looking out from behind a door, and you bet I was proud of old
Gerald. Wouldn't the mater have just loved to see him there, the only
white-skinned chap among them, and wouldn't the old pater have grinned
and chuckled to think he'd been the father of him. I could just imagine
him patting Gerald's naked shoulder and tipping him a sovereign.
There were more yells.
'Come out, Billums, they want you!'