The other nodded solemnly in his turn—
“A long night indeed, in which the sunksink tree very time.”
“Comment!” broke out the aide-de-camp hoarsely, and instantly realized his mistake.
“Ah! devil take the French!” said he explanatorily. “I been in their camp so long that to catch their lingo. But I spik l’Espagnol, señor. It shall be good to us to converse there.”
The other bowed impenetrably. His habit of a profound and melancholy aloofness might have served for mask to any temper of mind but that which, in real fact, it environed—a reason, that is to say, more lost than bedevilled under the long tyranny of oppression.
“I have been ill, I am to understand?” said Ducos, on his guard.
“For three days and nights, señor. My goatherd came to tell me how a wounded English officer was lying on the hills. Between us we conveyed you hither.”
“Ah, Dios! I remember. I had endeavoured to carry muskets into Saragossa by the river. I was hit in the leg; I was captured; I escaped. For two days I wandered, señor, famished and desperate. At last in these mountains I fell as by a stroke from heaven.”
“It was the foul blood clot, señor. It balked your circulation. There was the brazen splinter in the wound, which I removed, and God restored you. What fangs are theirs, these reptiles! In a few days you will be well.”
“Thanks to what ministering angel?”