"Where did you get it?"
"In the right side." And he held his hands pressed upon his body just above the right groin.
"It is all right," he went on. "I can get through this fight, but after——" He stopped, smiled feebly, and shook his head. In a moment I had taken off his belt, opened his clothes, and looked for the wound. It was a small one, just a little hole in the side, with scarcely any outflow of blood. This made me serious. I had often seen similar ones, and I knew, as all soldiers do, that the wound that does not bleed outwardly bleeds inwardly, and is the most dangerous for the sufferer and the most difficult for the surgeon.
"Never mind," said Mac; "you can do nothing—at least you cannot until we have beaten off these rascals. Do not weep, petite," he said to Giulia; "I now repay you for all your kindness to me when my pay was stopped."
This only made Giulia weep all the more. Poor girl, it was for her a morning of tribulation.
But the work had to be done. We all lay down close together, and as soon as the Berbers came within easy range Mac and I opened fire. The fight was like both the others, except that these Berbers, being village-bred agriculturists, did not try to charge us with so much resolution as either the spahis or the Bedouins. They fired upon us for some time, but Mac and I were too well armed to mind much the popping of their guns, and when we had shot three men and a couple of horses the survivors withdrew. Then Mac insisted that we should mount and go forward again, because, as he truly said, if others came up they might attack us in that place, but the sight of their dead comrades would scarcely impel them to pursue. Giulia and I could not deny this. It was apparent that the best chance of safety lay in leaving the field to the dead and making good our retreat before the Berbers learned that another man of ours had been placed hors de combat. Nevertheless, it was with heavy hearts that we remounted. It pained Giulia and myself to see the changed look in our good comrade's eyes; his forced smile made us sad, for the thought crossed our minds that soon we should be alone together in a savage land, without a friend, and almost without hope.
CHAPTER XXIV