“But I thought I was always friendly and sociable with them.”
“So you are, Private Gray,” cried the boy excitedly; “and if ever I get back to the ranks alive I’ll tell them you are the best comrade in the regiment, and how you wouldn’t leave me in the lurch.”
“And I shall make you promise, Punch, that you never say a word.”
“All right,” said the boy, with a faint smile, “I’ll promise. I won’t say a word; but,” he continued, with a shudder which did not conceal his smile, “they will be sure to find it out and get to like you as much as I do now.”
“What’s the matter, Punch?” said Pen shortly. “Cold?”
“Head’s hot as fire, so’s my shoulder; but everywhere else I am like ice. And there’s that swimming coming in my head again.—I don’t mind. It’s all right, comrade; I shall be better soon, but just now—just now—”
The boy’s voice trailed off into silence, and a few minutes later young Private Penton Gray, of his Majesty’s newly raised —th Rifles, nearly all fresh bearers of the weapon which was to do so much to win the battles of the Peninsular War, prepared to keep his night-watch on the chilly mountain-side by stripping off his coatee and unrolling his carefully folded greatcoat to cover the wounded lad. And that night-watch was where he could hear the howling and answering howls of the loathsome beasts that seemed to him to say: “This way, comrades: here, and here, for men are lying wounded and slain; the watch-fires are distant, and there are none to hinder us where the banquet is spread. Come, brothers, come!”