"By all the powers above!" cried Alister, with fierce and stern energy, "if ever this accursed Spaniard crosses my path, I will make his head fly from his shoulders as I would a thistle from its stalk! nor shall all the corregidors and alcaldes in Spain prevent me. But how is Stuart? Poor fellow! he looks very pale. Has he lost much blood?"
Ronald, supported on the arm of Evan Iverach, stood erect within a circle formed by the officers who crowded round, while one of the regimental surgeons examined his left arm, which had been wounded by the shot.
"O gude sake! be gentle wi' him, doctor!" said honest Evan in great anguish, as he observed Ronald to wince under the hands of the medical officer; "be as gentle wi' him as possible. You doctor folk are unco rough ever and aye: dinna forget that he is your namesake, and kinsman forbye, though ye canna find out the exact degree."
"I hope, Doctor Stuart, the wound is not a very bad one?" said Cameron, dismounting from his horse and approaching the circle. "I augur ill from the expression of concern which your countenance wears."
"The shot has passed completely through, colonel, breaking the bone in its passage; but as the fracture is not compound, it will soon join after setting. I hope that none of the red coat, or any other foreign body, is lodged in the wound."
"Oh, if it should be a poisoned ball!" groaned poor Evan in great misery at the idea, while Doctor Stuart removed the sleeve of the coat, and Ronald endeavoured to conceal the miniature of Alice Lisle, which was nearly revealed by the disarrangement of his uniform. "Oh, if it should be a poisoned ball!" he repeated.
"Some of our very best chields have been slain wi' them before now,—especially at the battle of Arroya-del-Molino," observed his comrade Angus Mackie, with a solemn shake of his head.
"Oh, that I had only been at his side! It micht have hit me in his stead!"
"Silence, men! You chatter nonsense," said Cameron sternly. "And what think you now, doctor?"
"That as Mr. Stuart is young, and of a full habit, I must bleed him immediately."