Pen took that to be the meaning, and the hot feeling in his young English breast burst, metaphorically, into flame.
Springing at the young Spaniard, he literally wrested the girl from his grasp; and as she sprang now to catch at Punch’s extended hand, Pen closed with her assailant, there was a brief struggle, and the Spaniard was driven here and there for a few moments before he caught his heel against the rough sill at the bottom of the doorway and went down heavily outside, but only to spring up again with his teeth bared like those of some wild beast as he sprang at Pen.
A piercing shriek came from the girl’s lips, and she tried to free herself from Punch’s detaining hand; but the boy held fast, checking the girl in her brave effort to throw herself between the contending pair, while Punch uttered the warning cry, “Look out! Mind, comrade! Knife! Knife!”
The next instant there was a dull thud, and the Spaniard fell heavily in the doorway, while Pen stood breathing hard, shaking his now open hand, which was rapidly growing discoloured.
“Has he cut you, comrade?” cried Punch in a husky voice.
“No. All right!” panted Pen with a half-laugh. “It’s only the skin off—his teeth. I hit first,” But he muttered to himself, “Cowardly brute! It was very near.—No, no, my girl,” he said now, aloud, as the girl stripped a little handkerchief from her neck and came up to him timidly, as if to bind up his bleeding knuckles. “I will go down to the stream. That will soon stop;” and he brushed past her, to again face the Spaniard, who was approaching him cautiously now, knife in hand, apparently about to spring.
“Oh, that’s it, is it?” said Pen sternly, and still facing the Spaniard he took a couple of steps backward towards the wall of the hut.
His assailant did not read his intention, and uttered a snarl of triumph as he continued his cautious tactics and went on advancing, swinging himself from side to side as if about to spring; and a dull gleam of light flashed from the knife he held in his hand.
But the hand Pen had thrust out behind him had not been idle; and Punch, who lay helplessly upon the bed, uttered a sigh of satisfaction, for with one quick movement Pen threw forward his right again to where it came closely in contact with his left, which joined on in throwing forward horizontally the rifle Pen had caught from where it stood in the corner of the hut, the muzzle delivering a dull blow in the Spaniard’s chest. There was a sharp click, click, and Pen thundered out, “Drop that knife and run, before it’s—fire!”