“But you shouldn’t,” grumbled the wounded boy surlily, as he screwed first one shoulder up to his ear and then the other. “Hff! You did hurt! What did you expect? Think I ought to be snoring? I say, though, give a fellow some more of that milk, will you? I’m thirsty. Couldn’t you get some bread—not to eat, but to sop in it?”
“I don’t think I could eat anything, but—” The boy stopped short as he lay passing his tongue over his fever-cracked lips, for the doorway of the miserable cabin was suddenly darkened, and Pen sprang round to find himself face to face with his visitor of the previous evening, who stood before him with the wooden vessel in one hand and a coarse-looking bread-cake in the other.
She looked searchingly and suspiciously at Pen for a few moments; and then, as if seeing no cause for fear, she stepped quickly in, placed the food she had brought upon the rough shelf, and then bent over Punch and laid one work-roughened hand upon the boy’s forehead, while he stared up at her wonderingly.
The girl turned to look round at Pen, and uttered a few words hurriedly in her Spanish patois. Then, as if recollecting herself, she caught the bread-cake from where she had placed it, broke a piece off, and put it in the young rifleman’s hand, speaking again quickly, every word being incomprehensible, though her movements were plain enough as she signed to him to eat.
“Yes, I know what you mean,” said Pen smiling; “but I want the bread for him,” and he pointed to the wounded boy.
The peasant-girl showed on the instant that though she could not understand the stranger’s words his signs were clear enough. She broke off another piece of the bread and took down the little wooden-handled pail, which was half-full of warm milk. This she held up to Pen, and signed to him to drink; but he shook his head and pointed to Punch. This produced a quick, decisive nod of the head, as the girl wrinkled up her forehead and signed in an insistent way that Pen should drink first.
He obeyed, and then the girl seated herself upon the bed and began to sop pieces of the bread and hold them to Punch’s lips.
“Thenkye,” he said faintly, and for the first time for many days the boy showed his white teeth, as he smiled up in their visitor’s face. “’Tis good,” he said, and his lips parted to receive another fragment of the milk-softened bread, which was given in company with a bright girlish smile and a few more words.
“I say,” said Punch, slowly turning his head from side to side, “I suppose you can’t understand plain English, can you?”
The girl’s voice sounded very pleasant, as she laughingly replied.