I have had the pleasure of being wounded in the field of battle. I say
pleasure. Under certain circumstances, wounds are luxuries. How
different were the feelings I experienced while smarting under wounds
that came by the steel of the assassin!
My earliest anxiety was about the depth of my wound. Was it mortal?
This is generally the first question a man puts to himself, after
discovering that he has been shot or stabbed. A wounded man cannot
always answer it either. One's life-blood may be spurting from an
artery at each palpitation, while the actual pain felt is not worth the
pricking of a pin.
On reaching the Fonda, I sank exhausted on my bed. Saint Vrain split my
hunting-shirt from cape to skirt, and commenced examining my wound. I
could not see my friend's face as he stood behind me, and I waited with
impatience.
"Is it deep?" I asked.
"Not deep as a draw-well, nor wide as a waggon-track," was the reply.
"You're quite safe, old fellow; thank God, and not the man who handled
that knife, for the fellow plainly intended to do for you. It is the
cut of a Spanish knife, and a devilish gash it is. Haller, it was a
close shave. One inch more, and the spine, my boy! but you're safe, I
say. Here, Gode! that sponge!"
"Sacre!" muttered Gode, with true Gallic aspirate, as he handed the wet
rag.
I felt the cold application. Then a bunch of soft raw cotton, the best
dressing it could have, was laid over the wound, and fastened by strips.
The most skilful surgeon could have done no more.
"Close as a clamp," added Saint Vrain, as he fastened the last pin, and
placed me in the easiest position. "But what started the row? and how
came you to cut such a figure in it? I was out, thank God!"
"Did you observe a strange-looking man?"
"What! with the purple manga?"
"Yes."
"He sat beside us?"
"Yes."
"Ha! No wonder you say a strange-looking man; stranger than he looks,
too. I saw him, I know him, and perhaps not another in the room could
say that. Ay, there was another," continued Saint Vrain, with a
peculiar smile; "but what could have brought him there is that which
puzzles me. Armijo could not have seen him: but go on."
I related to Saint Vrain the whole of my conversation with the stranger,
and the incidents that led to the breaking up of the fandango.
"It is odd--very odd! What could he want with your horse? Two hundred
miles, and offers a thousand dollars!"
"Capitaine!" (Gode had called me captain ever since the ride upon the
buffalo), "if monsieur come two hunred mile, and vill pay un mille
thousan dollar, he Moro like ver, ver moch. Un grand passion pour le
cheval. Pourquoi: vy he no like him ver sheep? vy he no steal 'im?"