“Ah!” gasped Fitz. “And I don’t really think—”
“Oh, but you did. It was in the excitement. Every one about you was firing, and you did the same. It would have been rather curious if you had not. Oh, here’s my governor coming along with Chips.”
“I say,” began Fitz excitedly.
“All right; I wasn’t going to; but slip in two more cartridges and close the breech.”
This was quickly done, and the skipper came up, talking to the carpenter the while.
“Yes, my lad,” he was saying, “I’d give something if you had a hammer and a bag of spikes to strengthen all the wood-work here.—Well, Poole,” he continued, “Don Ramon is in ecstasies. He says this is his first success, and I believe that if I were not here he’d go round and embrace all the lads.—But about those poor wretches lying out there. I’m not an unfeeling brute, my lads,” he continued, taking in Fitz with a glance the while, “but all I can do I have done.”
“But there are those two men moving out there, sir, that you can’t have seen,” cried Fitz imploringly, “and it seems so horrid—”
“Yes, my lad; war is horrid,” said the skipper. “I saw them when they first went down, and”—he added to himself—“I am afraid I was answerable for one. But, as I was saying, I have done all I could, and that is, insisted upon Don Ramon ordering his men to leave them alone and not fire at every poor wretch who shows a sign of life.”
“But,” began Fitz, “Poole and I wouldn’t mind going out and carrying them under shelter, one at a time.”
“No, my lad,” said the skipper, smiling sadly, “I know you would not; but I should, and very much indeed. You have both got mothers, and what would they say to me for letting two brave lads go to certain death?”