“Sick,” he whispered; “dying. El pano, el pano;” and his next movement was telling though grotesque, for he opened his mouth and made signs of eating, before pointing downward at the boy.
“Si, si,” cried the girl quickly, and, turning to the door again, she passed through, signing to him to follow, but only to turn back, point to the little pail that stood upon the floor by the bed’s head, and indicate that she wanted it.
Pen grasped her meaning, caught up the pail, handed it to her, and quite simply and naturally sank upon one knee and bent over to lightly kiss the girl’s extended hand, which closed upon the edge of the little vessel.
She shrank quickly, and a look of half-dread, half-annoyance came upon her countenance; but, as Pen drew back, her face smoothed and she nodded quickly, pointed in the direction of the big fall, made two or three significant gestures that might or might not have meant, “I’ll soon be back,” and then whispered, “El pano, el pano;” and ran off over the rugged stones as swiftly as one of her own mountain goats.
“Ha!” said Pen softly, as he sighed with satisfaction, “el pano means bread, plain enough, and she must have understood that. Gone,” he added, as the girl disappeared. “Then there must be another cottage somewhere in that direction, and I am going to hope that she will come back soon with something to eat. Who could have thought it?—But suppose she has gone to join some of the French who are about here, and comes back with a party to take us prisoners!—Oh, she wouldn’t be so treacherous; she can’t look upon us as enemies. We are not fighting against her people. But I don’t know; they must look upon us as made up of enemies. No, no, she was only frightened, and no wonder, to find us in her hut, for it must be hers or her people’s. Else she wouldn’t have come here. No, a girl like that, a simple country girl, would only think of helping two poor lads in distress, and she will come back and bring us some bread.”
As Pen stood watching the place where the girl had disappeared his hand went involuntarily to his pocket, where he jingled a few pesetas that he had left; and then, as he canvassed to himself the possibility of the girl’s return before long, he went slowly back into the hut and stood looking down at the sleeper.
“Bread and milk,” he said softly. “It will be like life to him. But how queer it seems that I should be worrying myself nearly to death, giving up my clothes to make him comfortable, playing doctor and nurse, and nearly starving myself, for a boy for whom I never cared a bit. I couldn’t have done any more for him if he had been my brother. Why, when I used to hear him speak it jarred upon me, he seemed so coarse and common. It’s human nature, I suppose, and I’m not going to doubt that poor girl again. She looks common and simple too—a Spanish peasant, I suppose, who had come to milk and see to the goats after perhaps being frightened away by the firing. A girl of seventeen or eighteen, I should say. Well, Spanish girls would be just as tender-hearted as ours at home. Of course; and she did just the same as one of them would have done. She looked sorry for poor Punch, and I saw one tear trickle over and fall down.—There, Punch, boy; we shall be all right now if the French don’t come.”
Pen stepped out in the open and seated himself upon a piece of mossy rock where he could gaze in the direction where he had last seen his visitor. But it was all dull and misty now. There was the distant murmur of the great fall, the sharp, sibilant chirrup of crickets. The great planet which had seemed like a friend to him before had risen from behind the distant mountain, and there was a peculiar sweet, warm perfume in the air that made him feel drowsy and content.
“Ah,” he sighed, “they say that when things are at their worst they begin to mend. They are mending now, and this valley never felt, never looked, so beautiful before. How one seems to breathe in the sweet, soft, dewy night-air! It’s lovely. I don’t think I ever felt so truly happy. There, it’s of no use for me to watch that patch of wood, for I could not see our visitor unless she was coming with a lantern; and perhaps she has had miles to go. Well, watching the spot is doing no good, and if she’s coming she will find her way, and she is more likely not to lose heart if I’m in the hut, for I might scare her away. Here, let’s go in and see how poor old Punch is getting on! But I never thought—I never could have imagined—when I was getting up my ‘lessons for to-morrow morning’ that the time would come when I should be waiting and watching in a Spanish peasant’s hut for some one to come and bring me in for a wounded comrade a cake of black-bread to keep us both alive.”
Pen Gray walked softly in the direction of the dimly seen hut through heathery brush, rustling at every step and seeming to have the effect of making him walk on tiptoe for fear he should break the silence of the soft southern evening.