“Why,” he said, “you are suffering from something else besides your wound. My men will bring some wine. I see you have water here. You are faint. There, let me place you more comfortably.—That’s better. I’ll see to your wound soon.—And you, my friend,” he continued, turning to Punch, who started and shook his head.
“No parly Frenchy,” he said.
“Never mind,” continued the smuggler. “Your friend can.—Tell him to eat some of the bread and fruit, and I will give him some of our grape medicine as soon as my men bring the skin.—A good hearty draught would do you good too, father,” he added, turning to the old man and laying his hand with an affectionate gesture upon the priest’s arm. “You have been working too hard, and must have had quite a scare. I am very glad we have come.”
A deep-toned voice came now from the room below, the smuggler replied, and there was a sound of ascending steps; then another of the smugglers appeared at the opening in the floor, thrusting something so peculiar and strange through the aperture that, as it subsided upon the edge in the full light cast by the smoky lamp, Punch whispered:
“Why, it’s a raw kid, comrade, and I don’t believe it’s dead!”
Pen laughed, and Punch’s eyes dilated as he saw the smuggler, who was standing with his head and shoulders in the opening, take what looked like a drinking-horn from his breast and place it upon the floor; and then it seemed to the boy that he untied a thong that was about one of the kid’s legs, and the next moment it appeared as if the animal had begun to bleed, its vital juice trickling softly into the horn cup, for it was his first acquaintance with a skin of rich Spanish wine.
“There, my friend,” said the smuggler, taking up the half-filled cup, “they say this is bad for fever, but I never knew it do harm to a man whose lifeblood had been drained. Drink: it will put some spirit in you before I perhaps put you to a good deal of pain.” And the next moment he was holding the wine-cup to the wounded lad’s lips.
“There,” said the smuggler at last, as he finished his self-imposed task, “I think you have borne it bravely.”
“Oh, nonsense,” said Pen quietly. “Surely a soldier should be able to bear a little pain.”
“I suppose so,” said his new surgeon; “but I am afraid that some of my countrymen would have shouted aloud at what I have done to you. I know some of my men have when I have tied them up after they have been unlucky enough to get one of the French Guards’ bullets in them. There now, the best thing you can do is to go to sleep;” and, having improvised a pillow for him with one of his follower’s cloaks, the Spaniard descended to the priest’s room, where several of his men were assembled; and after the priest had seen that Punch had been supplied from the basket, he followed his friend to where the men were gathered, leaving the boys in the semi-darkness, for he took down the lamp, whose rays once more shone up through the knot-hole and between the ill-fitting boards.