I saw that words could bring no comfort to the poor creature, but that our attention might be more effectually employed in binding up Manco’s wounds. Telling Ned this, we set to work in as scientific a way as we were able. Some of the Indians brought us water, and Nita, when she saw what we were about, aroused herself to help us. We had scarcely finished the operation, when a cry from Pedro called us to the assistance of Don Gomez, who had likewise fainted from the pain of his wound and loss of blood. My attention had, indeed, been so completely occupied with my Indian friend, that I had forgotten that the Spaniard had been hurt. Pedro was kneeling by his side, and supporting him with a look of interest and anxiety, which I at first was at a loss to understand.
“O come, my friend, come and help him, or he will die!” he exclaimed.
Ned, who had seen many a gun-shot wound, and had often assisted the surgeons to doctor his shipmates, examined the Spaniard’s hurts.
“It’s a bad job, mate, I’m afraid,” he observed, pointing to his side. “The ball is in him somewhere, for there’s the place it entered, and I can find no hole where it could have got out again. I’ve been feeling for it all round his back, but there’s no sign of it. How he came on so far as this without dropping, I don’t know. It was his spirit kept him up, I suppose.”
Finding that we could do nothing else to relieve the unfortunate Don Gomez, we washed and bound up his wound, and then laid him on a bed of some straw and skins, which we found in the cavern. The same care had been taken of Manco. The Indians, meantime, had lighted a fire in the mouth of the cavern, and were seated round it in moody silence, brooding over their defeat and the death of many of their comrades and friends. We found some brandy among the stores, and after Don Gomez had swallowed a little of it, which we gave him with some water, he revived, and beckoned Pedro to him.
“You were telling me, as we came along, a strange tale of your life, young man,” he said, in a feeble voice. “It served to sustain me, when otherwise I should have sunk with pain. Can I believe you?”
“Indeed, Señor, I have only told the truth,” replied Pedro. “I was found by the Indians, when an infant, alone in a wood. My complexion shows that I am Spanish; and see, the crucifix and chain which were around my neck when I was discovered, I have ever since worn.”
“Merciful Providence, what do I behold?” exclaimed the wounded man, starting up and gazing eagerly at the ornament Pedro exhibited. “It is—it is! Come to my arms, my son, my son! I have found you, alas! but to quit you too soon again.”
Pedro had thrown himself upon his father’s neck, for such there could be no doubt Don Gomez was.
“Oh, do not say so, my father, whom I have so long sought. Do not say that you must quit me!” he cried, in an agony of tears.