Two of the wounded men were able to eat, and they were very grateful for the food we took them. Then we returned to the fire, piled up some sacks to serve as seats, and began our meal.
It was all most strange to me and very delightful; it might have been a chapter lifted bodily from one of my favourite story-books. There seemed to be a piratical flavour about the whole business.
"Perhaps it is as well that I gave my parole," exclaimed the major thoughtfully, taking off another potato.
"Why?" I asked.
"I might have felt tempted to escape," he replied, looking at the coil of rope.
"You forget your jailer carries a pistol," I remarked, laughing.
"An empty one," he suggested, shrugging his shoulders. "No, no, my boy; my parole is your only safeguard."
"It is a sufficient one, at any rate."
"Yes," said he, rather dreamily, I thought. "The honour of a Mariano is sacred; my father taught me that. And yet—and yet, do you know, Crawford," he added, in a sharper tone, "I doubt if a parole given to brigands should be held to."
I did not at all like this turn in the conversation, the more especially as my pistol was really empty. I had not dreamed of taking any precautions, trusting wholly in the Spanish officer's honour.