Then there was another rush, with much the same result as before, and again another and another, and this was kept up at intervals for hours, till Pen grew faint and heart-sick, his comrade dull and stubborn; and both were faint too, for the sun had been beating down with torrid violence so that the heated rocks grew too hot to touch, and the burning thirst caused by the want of air made the ravine seem to swim before Pen’s eyes.
But they kept on, and with terrible repetition the scenes of the morning followed, until, as the two lads reloaded, they rested the hot musket-barrels before them upon the heated rock and looked full in each other’s eyes.
“Well, Punch,” said Pen hoarsely, “what are you thinking?”
The boy was silent for a few moments, and then in the horrible stillness which was repeated between each attack he said slowly, “Just the same as you are, comrade.”
“That your old wound throbs and burns just the same as mine does?”
“Oh, it does,” said Punch, “and has for ever so long; but I wasn’t thinking that.”
“Then you were thinking, the same as I was, that you were glad that this horrible business was nearly over, and that these Spanish fellows, who have done nothing to help us, must now finish it themselves?”
“Well, not azackly,” replied the boy. “What I was thinking was that it’s all over now—as soon as we have had another shot apiece.”
“Yes,” said Pen; “one more shot apiece, and we have fired our last cartridges.”
“But look here,” said Punch, “couldn’t we manage with powder and shot from their blunderbusters?”