“Poor Felipe!” murmured Augustina. “Here is some wine; take it, for you look worn and tired”; and as she spoke, she gave him a glass of the sour wine which is so esteemed by the Spaniard, and in which Felipe moistened some bits of bread, standing beside his gun all the while so as to be ready to load and fire as soon as he had finished.
The tumult was appalling. Orders were being shouted out from either side, clouds of smoke obscured the walls as well as the broad and grassy vega where the French camp was established. The noise was deafening, and every few moments a ball, screaming as it went, flew over their heads, and burst somewhere in the city behind them, killing and destroying, and often leaving in its wake fiery embers which burst into flame.
Augustina steadied herself by putting her hand on the gun, and as Felipe turned to it once more he shouted to her,—
“Hear the Signorina speak, Augustina; she is the bravest lady on the walls!” and he thrust into the gaping mouth of the gun a huge iron case which he took from a pile near at hand, and which held within it many small iron balls.
“Now hear my lady’s voice!” turning towards Augustina with a look of triumph on his face.
There was a deafening roar, a cloud of smoke, and even as it floated about them out of its midst seemed to come a great thing that flew towards them,—a whirling, screaming thing that never wavered in its track! Before she could realise what it was, there was a deafening roar, Augustina was thrown on her face, and heard all about her a sound as of falling stones. She knew in a moment, as soon as the noise had died away, that she was not hurt. She slowly scrambled to her feet, and looked about for Felipe.
Ah, he had been thrown down like herself!
“Felipe!” she called.
Amid the tumult her voice seemed but a whisper.
“Felipe!” Still there was no answer, and as she looked again she saw that on his breast lay a large bit of something that looked like a stone. She hurried to him and pushed it off, trying to raise him as she did so; but he fell back, and she threw herself on her knees, lifting his head in her arms, and saying softly,—