[#] Short for 'buenas noches!' = good-evening.
He was as white as a sheet, and seemed rather 'off his head.' 'El Medico,' he sang out, as I went in—all of them sang out, 'El Medico,' holding out their hands to make me notice them.
'William Wilson,' I said, and held out the cigarette case he'd sent me, but he only looked at it vacantly, muttered, 'El Medico!' again, and his chin dropped on his chest I thought he was dying, and was in a terrible stew. I couldn't see any wound about him, and felt his arms; they were all right, and I felt his legs. Ugh! then I knew, for half-way above his left knee the bone was sticking through a rent in his breeches and they were sticky with blood. He groaned when I touched it, muttering, 'El Medico'—'San Fernando!' 'Ag-ua! Agua!'
One of the machetos brought him some water.
I scratched my head, I didn't know what to do, and he went on rambling, 'Zorilla,' 'El Castellar,' 'William Wilson,' 'Don Geraldio'—'El Medico'—'San Fernando.'
'All right, old chap, I'll get you to San Fernando if I can,' I said to myself.
Well, I knew enough about 'first aid' to lash the two legs firmly together, and somehow managed to make the natives understand that I wanted a stretcher. They made a rough litter out of branches in next to no time. I found a blanket tied to the saddle of a dead horse outside the hut, and covered the litter with it, and then I told off four of the most sturdy of the machete men to carry him. They obeyed me like lambs.
I hated to have to leave these other wounded men there—they cried piteously when they saw me going—but there were not enough natives to carry them, so I could not help it. I would try and get Gerald to send for them.
Phew! it was bad enough for me, but poor little Navarro, in his stretcher, had a most awful time as we stumbled back through the forest—he was shrieking with agony,—and when we struck the old Spanish road again, after a most fearful time struggling among trees and brushwood, he was quite delirious. You can imagine how thankful I was to feel it under my feet, and, leaving him on his litter by the roadside, and tying my horse to a tree, I tramped down towards the barricade.
It was just getting light enough for me to see some empty deserted wagons standing at the roadside and the fallen tree-trunks dragged across it, but there was not a single living man there, only one or two dead men hanging across the barricade, with their machetes still in their hands.