!Tention Part 17

"I don't think I could eat anything, but--" The boy stopped short as he lay pa.s.sing his tongue over his fever-cracked lips, for the doorway of the miserable cabin was suddenly darkened, and Pen sprang round to find himself face to face with his visitor of the previous evening, who stood before him with the wooden vessel in one hand and a coa.r.s.e-looking bread-cake in the other.

She looked searchingly and suspiciously at Pen for a few moments; and then, as if seeing no cause for fear, she stepped quickly in, placed the food she had brought upon the rough shelf, and then bent over Punch and laid one work-roughened hand upon the boy's forehead, while he stared up at her wonderingly.

The girl turned to look round at Pen, and uttered a few words hurriedly in her Spanish patois. Then, as if recollecting herself, she caught the bread-cake from where she had placed it, broke a piece off, and put it in the young rifleman's hand, speaking again quickly, every word being incomprehensible, though her movements were plain enough as she signed to him to eat.

"Yes, I know what you mean," said Pen smiling; "but I want the bread for him," and he pointed to the wounded boy.

The peasant-girl showed on the instant that though she could not understand the stranger's words his signs were clear enough. She broke off another piece of the bread and took down the little wooden-handled pail, which was half-full of warm milk. This she held up to Pen, and signed to him to drink; but he shook his head and pointed to Punch.

This produced a quick, decisive nod of the head, as the girl wrinkled up her forehead and signed in an insistent way that Pen should drink first.

He obeyed, and then the girl seated herself upon the bed and began to sop pieces of the bread and hold them to Punch's lips.

"Thenkye," he said faintly, and for the first time for many days the boy showed his white teeth, as he smiled up in their visitor's face. "'Tis good," he said, and his lips parted to receive another fragment of the milk-softened bread, which was given in company with a bright girlish smile and a few more words.

"I say," said Punch, slowly turning his head from side to side, "I suppose you can't understand plain English, can you?"

The girl's voice sounded very pleasant, as she laughingly replied.

"Ah," said Punch, "and I can't understand plain Spanish. But I know what you mean, and I will try to eat.--'Tis good. Give us a bit more."

For the next ten minutes or so the peasant-girl remained seated upon the bedside attending to the wounded boy, breaking off the softer portions of the cake, soaking them in the warm milk, and placing them to the sufferer's lips, and more than once handing portions of the cake to Pen and giving him the clean wood vessel so that he might drink, while the sun lit up the interior of the hut and lent a peculiar brightness to the intently gazing eyes of its three occupants, till the rustic breakfast came to an end, this being when Punch kept his lips closed, gazed up straight in the girl's face, and smiled and shook his head.

"Good!" said the girl in her native tongue, and she nodded and laughed in satisfaction before playfully making believe to close the boy's eyes, and ending by keeping her hand across the lids so that he might understand that he was now to sleep.

To this Punch responded by taking the girl's hand in his and holding it for a few moments against his cheek before it was withdrawn, when the poor wounded lad turned his face away so that no one should see that a weak tear was stealing down his sun-browned cheek.

But the girl saw it, and her own eyes were wet as she turned quickly to Pen, pointed to the bread and milk, signed to him that he should go on eating, and then hurried out into the bright sunshine, Pen following, to see that she was making straight for the waterfall.

The next minute she had disappeared amongst the trees.

"Well, Punch," cried Pen, as he stepped back to the hut, "feel better for your breakfast?"

"Better? Yes, of course. But I say, she didn't see me snivelling, did she?"

"Yes, I think so; and it made her snivel too, as you call it. Of course she was sorry to see you so weak and bad."

"Ah!" said Punch, after a few moments' silence, during which he had lain with his eyes shut.

"What is it? Does your wound hurt you?"

"No; I forgot all about it. I say, I should like to give that girl something, because it was real kind of her; but I ain't got nothing but a sixpence with a hole in it, and she wouldn't care for that, because it's English."

"Well, I don't know, Punch. I dare say she would. A good-hearted girl like that wouldn't look upon its value, but would keep it out of remembrance of our meeting."

"Think so?" said Punch eagerly, and with his eyes sparkling. "Oh, don't I wish I could talk Spanish!"

"Oh, never mind that," said Pen. "Think about getting well. But, all the same, I wish I could make her understand so that she could guide me to where our fellows are."

"Eh?" cried the boy eagerly. "You ain't a-going to run away and leave me here, are you?"

"Is it likely, Punch?"

"Of course not," cried the boy. "Never you mind what I say. I get muddly and stupid in my head sometimes, and then I say things I don't mean."

"Of course you do; I understand. It's weakness," said Pen cheerily; "but you are getting better."

"Think so, comrade? You see, I ain't had no doctor."

"Yes, you have. Nature's a fine doctor; and if we can keep in hiding here a few days more, and that girl will keep on bringing us bread and milk, you will soon be in marching order; so we are not going to be in the dumps. We will find our fellows somehow."

"To be sure we will," said Punch cheerfully, as he wrenched himself a little over, wincing with pain the while.

"What is it, Punch? Wound hurt you again?"

"Yes; horrid," said the boy with a sigh.

"Then, why don't you lie still? You should tell me you wanted to move."

"Yes, all right; I will next time. It did give me a stinger. Sets a fellow thinking what some of our poor chaps must feel who get shot down and lie out in the mountains without a comrade to help them--a comrade like you. I shall never--"

"Look here, Punch," interrupted Pen, "I don't like b.u.t.ter."

"I do," said the boy, with his eyes dancing merrily. "Wished I had had some with that bread's morning."

"Now, you know what I mean," cried Pen; "and mind this, if you get talking like that to me again I will go off and leave you."

"Ha, ha!" said the boy softly, "don't believe you. All right then, I won't say any more if you don't like it; but I shall think about it all the more."

"There you go again," cried Pen. "What is it you want? What are you trying to get? You are hurting yourself again."

"Oh, I was only trying to get at that there sixpence," said the poor fellow, with a dismal look in his face. "I'm half-afraid it's lost.-- No, it ain't! I just touched it then."

"Then don't touch it any more."

"But I want it."

"No, you don't, not till that girl comes; and you had better keep it till we say good-bye."

"Think so?" said Punch.

Pen nodded.

"You think she will come again, then?"

"She is sure to."

"Ah," said Punch, rather drowsily now, "I say, how nice it feels for any one to be kind to you when you are bad."