"Let's get breath first," said my father. "Sit down, my lads, anywhere.
How many are we? Only six all told? Who's hurt?"
"Oh, I'm all right, captain," said the foreman; "only a bit of a cut."
"Only a bit of a cut!" said my father. "Here, hold your arm." My
father drew out a bandage from his pocket, and tied up the foreman's
arm, and he had no sooner done this than another man offered himself to
be bandaged.
Just then a couple of shots were fired in our direction, and we heard
the bullets strike the rocks not far away; but while our enemies were
below, and in the full glare of the burning cottages, we were above
them, and in the darkness of the shadows cast by the rocks.
So the shots were allowed to go unheeded, while the bandaging went on,
every one having some injury which was borne without a murmur.
"Are you hurt, Sep?" said my father then, anxiously, after he had
attended to his men.
"I don't think I'm cut anywhere," I said; "but my left arm hurts a good
deal, and I can't breathe as I should like to."
"Breathe?" he said eagerly.
"Yes; it hurts my side here and catches."
"Humph!" he said. "Can you tie this round my shoulder?"
"Why, father," I said, "are you wounded too?"
"A scratch, my boy; but it bleeds a good deal."
He tore open his coat and tried to take it off, but could not, and we
had to help him, and then roughly bandage his shoulder, where he had
received a horrible cut.