"God bless you, child," said Don José, seeing that she was bringing lint and linen to bandage him. "Enough for now that you patch up this leg a little. I don't believe there are any bones broken."
While this was going on, some twenty peasants came into the house to fire from the windows upon the ruins of the hospital.
"Señor de Araceli, are you not going on firing? Wait a moment until I get up, for I don't seem able to walk alone. I command you to fire from the window. That's a good shot. Don't let them have time to breathe over there at the hospital. Look here, lass, make haste! Haven't you a knife? It would be a good thing to cut off this piece of flesh that's hanging. How goes it, Señor de Araceli? Are we going to win?"
"It's going all right," I answered from the window. "They are falling back at the hospital. San Francisco is a bone that is a little hard to pick."
Mariquilla, meanwhile, was looking fixedly at Montoria, and following his instructions in caring for him with much solicitude and deftness.
"You are a jewel, child," said my friend. "It seems to me that I can scarcely feel your hands upon my wound. But what makes you look at me so much? Does my face look like a monkey's? Let's see, is it finished? I will try to get up. But I am not able to sit up. What sort of weak water is this in my veins! Porr—I was going to say—I don't seem able to correct that bad habit! Señor de Araceli, I don't do very well with my soul. How goes the battle?"
"Señor, a thousand marvels! Our valiant peasants are working wonders!"
Here a wounded officer was brought in for whom a ligature was wanted.
"Everything goes as we would desire it to go," he said to us. "They will not take San Francisco. Those in the hospital have been repulsed three times. But the most wonderful thing, señors, took place beside San Diego. I saw the French gain the orchard joining the house Los Duendes, where they were met by the bayonets of those brave soldiers of Orihuela commanded by Pino-Hermoso, who not only dislodged them, but they say killed a lot of them, and took thirty prisoners."