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Chapter One.

To save a Comrade.

A sharp volley, which ran echoing along the ravine, then another,
just as the faint bluish smoke from some hundred or two muskets
floated up into the bright sunshine from amidst the scattered
chestnuts and cork-trees that filled the lower part of the beautiful
gorge, where, now hidden, now flashing out and scattering the
rays of the sun, a torrent roared and foamed along its rocky
course onward towards its junction with the great Spanish river
whose destination was the sea.

Again another ragged volley; and this was followed by a few dull,
heavy- sounding single shots, which came evidently from a
skirmishing party which was working its way along the steep
slope across the river.

There was no responsive platoon reply to the volley, but the

skirmishing shots were answered directly by crack! crack! crack! the
reports that sounded strangely different to those heavy, dull
musket-shots which came from near at hand, and hardly needed
glimpses of dark-green uniforms that dotted the hither slope of
the mountain-side to proclaim that they were delivered by
riflemen who a few minutes before were, almost in single line,
making their way along a rugged mountain-path.

A second glance showed that they formed the rear-guard of a

body of sharpshooters, beyond whom in the distance could be
made out now and then glints of bright scarlet, which at times
looked almost orange in the brilliant sunshine—orange flashed
with silver, as the sun played upon musket-barrel and fixed
bayonet more than shoulder-high.

The country Spain, amidst the towering Pyrenees; the scarlet that
of a British column making its way along a rugged mule-path,
from which those that traversed it looked down upon a scene of
earthly beauty, and upwards at the celestial blue, beyond
which towered the rugged peaks
where here and there patches of the past winter’s snow gleamed
and sparkled in the sun.

Strategy had indicated retreat; and the black-green, tipped at

collar and cuff with scarlet, of England’s rifle-regiment was
covering the retiring line, when the blue-coated columns of the
French General’s division had pressed on and delivered the wild
volleys and scattered shots of the skirmishers which drew forth
the sharp, vicious, snapping reply of the retreating rear-guard.

“At last!” said one of the riflemen, rising from where he had knelt
on one knee to take cover behind a bush, and there stand
driving down a cartridge with a peculiarly sharp, ringing sound of
iron against iron, before finishing off with a few heavy thuds,
returning the bright rod to its loops, and raising the pan of the
lock to see that it was well primed with the coarse powder of the
day.

“Yes—at last!” said his nearest comrade, who with a few more
had halted at a subaltern’s command to wait in cover for a shot
or two at their pursuing foe. “Are we going to hold this place?”

“No,” said the young officer. “Hear that, my man?” For a note or
two of a bugle rang out sweet and clear in the beautiful valley,
suggesting to one of the men a similar scene in an English dell;
but he sighed to himself as it struck him that this was a
different hunt, and that they, the men of the
—th, the one rifle-regiment of the British Army, were the hunted,
and that those who followed were the French.

A few more cracks from the rifles as the retreat was continued,
and then the French musketry ceased; but the last of the
sharpshooters obtained glimpses of the blue coats of the French
coming quickly on.

“Have you sickened them, my lads?” said the young officer, as he

led his men after the retreating main body of their friends.

“No, sir,” said the young private addressed; “they seem to have
lost touch of us. The mule-track has led right away to the left
here.”

“To be sure—yes. Then they will begin again directly. Keep your
face well to the enemy, and take advantage of every bit of
cover.—Here, bugler,
keep close up to me.”

The sturdy-looking boy addressed had just closed up to his

officer’s side when, as they were about to plunge into a low-
growing patch of trees, there was another volley, the bullets
pattering amongst the branches, twigs and leaves cut from
above the men’s heads falling thickly.

“Forward, my lads—double!” And the subaltern led his men

through the trees to where the mountain-side opened out a little
more; and, pointing with his sword to a dense patch a little
farther on, he shouted, “Take cover there! We must hold that
patch.—Here, bugler!—Where’s that boy?”

No one answered, the men hurriedly following the speaker at the

double; but the young private who had replied to the
subaltern’s questions, having fallen back to where he was running
with a companion in the rear, looked over his shoulder, and
then, startled by the feeling that the boy had not passed
through the clump, he stopped short, his companion imitating his
example and replying to the eager question addressed to him:

“I dunno, mate. I thought he was with his officer. Come on; we

don’t want to be prisoners.”

He started again as he spoke, not hearing, or certainly not

heeding, his comrade’s angry words—

“He must be back there in the wood.”

Carrying his rifle at the trail, he dashed back into the wood,
hearing, as he ran, shouts as of orders being given by the enemy;
but he ran on right through the clump of trees to where the
mule-path meandered along by the edge of the precipice, and lay
open before him to the next patch of woodland which screened
the following enemy from view.

But the path was not unoccupied, for there, about fifty yards from
him, he caught sight of his unfortunate young comrade, who,
bugle in hand, was just struggling to his feet; and then, as he
stood upright, he made a couple of steps forward, but only to
stagger and reel for a moment; when, as his comrade uttered a
cry, the boy tottered over the edge of the path,
fell a few yards, and then rolled down the steep slope out of sight.

The young rifleman did not stop to think, but occupied the brief
moments in running to his comrade’s help; and, just as a volley
came crashing from the open wood beyond the path, he dropped
down over the side, striving hard to keep his feet and to check
his downward progress to where he felt that the boy must have
fallen. Catching vainly at branch and rock, he went on, down and
down, till he was brought up short by a great mossy block of
stone just as another volley was fired, apparently from the mule-
track high above him; and half-unconsciously, in the confusion
and excitement of the moment, he lay perfectly still, cowering
amongst the sparse growth in the hope that he might not be seen
from the shelf-like mule-track above, though expectant all the
while that the next shot fired would be at him.

But, as it happened, that next shot was accompanied by many

more; and as, fearing to move, he strained his eyes upward, he
could see the grey smoke rising, and hear the sound of a bugle,
followed by the rush of feet, and he knew that, so far, he had not
been seen, but that the strong body of the enemy were hurrying
along the mule-track in full pursuit of his friends.

“Just as if I had been running,” muttered the young rifleman; and

he stole his left hand slowly upwards, from where he was lying in
a most awkward position, to rest it upon his breast as if to check
the heavy beating of his heart.

“Ah!” he panted at last, as with strained eyes and ears he

waited for some sign of his presence behind the advancing
enemy being known. “Where’s that boy?” he muttered hoarsely;
and he tried to look about without moving, so as not to expose
himself to any who might be passing along the rocky ledge.

The next minute the necessity for caution was emphasised, for
there was a hoarse command from somewhere above, followed
by the heavy tramp of feet which told only too plainly that he was
being cut off from his regiment by another body of the enemy.

“I couldn’t help it,” he said. “I couldn’t leave that poor fellow

behind.”
He had hardly uttered this thought when, apparently from just
beyond the rugged mass of stone which had checked his descent,
there came a low groan, followed by a few words, amongst
which the listener made out, “The cowards!”

“That you, Punch?” whispered the young rifleman

excitedly. “Eh, who’s that?” was the faint reply.

“Hist! Lie still. I’ll try and get to you

directly.” “That you, Private Gray?”

“Yes, yes,” was whispered back, and the speaker felt his heart
leap within his breast; “but lie still for a few moments.”

“Oh, do come! I’m—I’ve got it bad.”

The young private felt his heart sink again as he recalled the
way in which the boy had staggered and fallen from the edge of
the track above him. Then, in answer to the appeal for help, he
passed his rifle over his body, and, wrenching himself round, he
managed to lower himself beyond the mass of rock so as to get
beneath and obtain its shelter from those passing along the
ledge, but only to slip suddenly for a yard or two, with the result
that the shrubs over which he had passed sprang up again and
supplied the shelter which he sought.

“Punch! Punch! Where are you?” he whispered, as, satisfied now

that he could not be seen from above, he raised his head a
little and tried to make out him whom he sought.

But all was perfectly still about where he lay, while the sound of
musketry came rolling and echoing along the narrow ravine;
and above the trees, in the direction in which his friends must
be, there was a rising and ever- thickening cloud of smoke.

Then for a few minutes the firing ceased, and in the midst of the
intense silence there arose from the bushes just above the
listener’s head a quick twittering of premonitory notes, followed
by the sharp, clear, ringing song of a bird, which thrilled the lad
with a feeling of hope in the midst of
what the moment before had been a silence that was awful.

Then from close at hand came a low, piteous groan, and a familiar
voice muttered, “The cowards—to leave a comrade like this!”

Chapter Two.

Poor Punch.

Private Gray, of his Majesty’s —th Rifles,—wrenched himself

round once more, pressed aside a clump of heathery growth,
crawled quickly about a couple of yards, and found himself lying
face to face with the bugler of his company.

“Why, Punch, lad!” he said, “not hurt much, are

you?” “That you, Private Gray?”

“Yes. But tell me, are you wounded?”

“Yes!” half-groaned the boy; and then with a sudden access of

excitement, “Here, I say, where’s my bugle?”

“Oh, never mind your bugle. Where are you hurt?” cried the boy’s
comrade.

“In my bugle—I mean, somewhere in my back. But where’s my

instrument?”

“There it is, in the grass, hanging by the cord.”

“Oh, that’s better,” groaned the boy. “I thought all our chaps had
gone on and left me to die.”

“And now you see that they hav’n’t,” said the boy’s companion.
“There, don’t try to move. We mustn’t be seen.”

“Yes,” almost babbled the boy, speaking piteously, “I thought

they had all gone, and left me here. I did try to ketch up to
them; but—oh, I am so
faint and sick that it’s all going round and round! Here, Private
Gray, you are a good chap, shove the cord over my head, and
take care the enemy don’t get my bugle. Ah! Water—water,
please! It’s all going round and round.”

Penton Gray made no effort now to look round for danger, but,
unstopping his water-bottle, he crept closer to his companion in
adversity, passed the strap of the boy’s shako from under his
chin, thrust his cap from his head to lie amongst the grass, and
then opened the collar of his coatee and began to trickle a little
water between the poor fellow’s lips and sprinkled a little upon
his temples.

“Ah!” sighed the boy, as he began to revive, “that’s good! I don’t

mind now.”

“But you are hurt. Where’s your wound?” said the young private
eagerly.

“Somewhere just under the shoulder,” replied the boy. “’Tain’t

bleeding much, is it?”

“I don’t know yet.—I won’t hurt you more than I can

help.” “Whatcher going to do?”

“Draw off your jacket so that I can see whether the hurt’s bad.”

“’Tain’t very,” said the boy, speaking feebly of body but stout of
heart. “I don’t mind, comrade. Soldiers don’t mind a wound.—Oh,
I say!” he cried, with more vigour than he had previously evinced.

“Did I hurt you?”

“Yes, you just did. Were you cutting it with your knife?”

“No,” said his comrade with a half-laugh, as he drew his hand

from where he had passed it under the boy’s shoulder. “That’s
what cut you, Punch,” and he held up a ragged-looking bullet
which had dropped into his fingers as he manipulated the wound.

“Thought you was cutting me with your knife,” said the boy,
speaking with
some energy now. “But, I say, don’t you chuck that away; I want
that.— What did they want to shoot me there for—the cowards!
Just as if I was running away, when I was only obeying orders. If
they had shot me in front I could have seen to it myself.—I say,
does it bleed much?”

“No, my lad; but it’s an ugly place.”

“Well, who wants it to be handsome? I ain’t a girl. Think you

can stop it, private?”

“I think I can bind it up, Punch, and the bleeding will stop

of itself.” “That’s good. I say, though, private—sure to die

after it, ain’t I?”

“Yes, some day,” said the young soldier, smiling encouragingly at

the speaker; and then by the help of a shirt-sleeve and a bandage
which he drew from his knapsack, the young soldier managed
pretty deftly to bind up his comrade’s wound, and then place him
in a more comfortable position, lying upon his side.

“Thank ye!” said the boy with a sigh. “But, I say, you have give it

me hot.” “I am very sorry, boy.”

“Oh, never mind that. But just wipe my face; it’s all as wet as wet,
and the drops keep running together and tickling.”

This little service was performed, and then the boy turned
his head uneasily aside.

“What is it, Punch?”

“That there bullet—where is

it?” “I have got it safe.”

“That’s right. Now, where’s my

bugle?” “There it is, quite safe too.”

“Yes, that’s right,” said the boy faintly. “I don’t want to lose that;
but— Oh,
I say, look at that there dent! What’ll the colonel say when he sees
that?”

“Shall I tell you, Punch?” said the young man, who bent over
him, watching every change in his face.

“Yes—no. I know: ‘Careless young whelp,’ or something; and the

sergeant—”

“Never mind the sergeant,” said the young sharpshooter. “I

want to tell you what the colonel will say, like the gentleman he
is.”

“Then, what’ll he say?” said the wounded lad drowsily.

“That he has a very brave boy in his regiment, and— Poor chap,
he has fainted again! My word, what a position to be in! Our
fellows will never be able to get back, and if I shout for help it
means hospital for him, prison for me. What shall I do?”

There was nothing to be done, as Pen Gray soon realised as he

lay upon his side in the shade of the steep valley, watching his
wounded comrade, who gradually sank into the sleep of
exhaustion, while the private listened for every sound that might
suggest the coming on or retreating of the French troops. His
hopes rose once, for it seemed to him that the tide of war was
ebbing and flowing lower down the valley, and his spirits rose as
the mountain-breeze brought the sounds of firing apparently
nearer and nearer, till he felt that the English troops had not only
rallied, but were driving back the French over the ground by
which they had come. But as the day wore on he found that his
hopes were false; and, to make their position worse, fresh troops
had come down the valley and were halted about a quarter of a
mile from where he and his sleeping companion lay; while, lower
down, the firing, which had grown fiercer and fiercer, gradually
died out.

He was intently straining his ears, when to his surprise the

afternoon sun began to flash upon the weapons of armed men,
and once more his hopes revived in the belief that the French
were being driven back; but to his astonishment and dismay, as
they came more and more into sight, a halt seemed to have
been called, and they too settled down into a bivouac, and
communications by means of mounted men took place between
them and the halted party higher up the valley; the young
rifleman, by using great care, watching the going to and fro unseen.

Evening was coming on, and Pen Gray was still watching and
wondering whether it would be possible to take advantage of the
darkness, when it fell, to try and pass down the valley,
circumvent the enemy, and overtake their friends, when the
wounded boy’s eyes unclosed, and he lay gazing wonderingly in
his comrade’s eyes.

“Better, Punch?” said Pen softly.

“What’s the matter?” was the reply; and the boy gazed in his face
in a dazed, half-stupid way.

“Don’t you remember, lad?”

“No,” was the reply. “Where’s the ridgment?”

“Over yonder. Somewhere about the mouth of the valley, I

expect.” “Oh, all right. What time is it?”

“I should think about five. Why?”

“Why?” said the boy. “Because there will be a row. Why are we

here?” “Waiting till you are better before trying to join our

company.”

“Better? Have we been resting, then, because my feet were so

bad with the marching?”

Pen was silent as he half-knelt there, listening wonderingly to his

comrade’s half-delirious queries, and asking himself whether he
had better tell the boy their real position.

“So much marching,” continued the boy, “and those blisters. Ah, I
remember! I say, private, didn’t I get a bullet into me, and fall
right down here? Yes, that’s it. Here, Private Gray, what are you
going to do?”

“Ah, what are we going to do?” said the young man sadly. “I was
in hopes that you would be so much better, or rather I hoped
you might, that we
could creep along after dark and get back to our men; but I am
afraid—”

“So’m I,” said the boy bitterly, as he tried to move himself a little,
and then sank back with a faint groan. “Couldn’t do it, unless two
of our fellows got me in a sergeant’s sash and carried me.”

“I’d try and carry you on my back,” said Pen, “if you could bear

it.” “Couldn’t,” said the boy abruptly. “I say, where do you think

our lads are?” “Beaten, perhaps taken prisoners,” said Pen

bitterly.

“Serve ’em right—cowards! To go and leave us behind like

this!” “Don’t talk so much.”

“Why?”

“It will make you feverish; and it’s of no use to complain. They
couldn’t help leaving us. Besides, I was not left.”

“Then how come you to be here?” said the boy

sharply. “I came after you, to help you.”

“More old stupid you! Didn’t you know when you were safe?”

Pen raised his brows a little and looked half-perplexed, half-

amused at the irritable face of his comrade, who wrinkled up his
forehead with pain, drew a hard breath, and then whispered
softly, “I say, comrade, I oughtn’t to have said that there, ought
I?”

Pen was silent.

“You saw me go down, didn’t

you?” Pen bowed his head.

“And you ran back to pick me up? Ah!” he ejaculated, drawing

his breath hard.
“Wound hurt you much, my lad?”

“Ye–es,” said the lad, wincing; “just as if some one was boring a
hole through my shoulder with a red-hot ramrod.”

“Punch, my lad, I don’t think it’s a bad wound, for while you were
asleep I looked, and found that it had stopped bleeding.”

“Stopped? That’s a good job; ain’t it, comrade?”

“Yes; and with a healthy young fellow like you a wound soon
begins to heal up if the wounded man lies quiet.”

“But I’m only a boy, private.”

“Then the wound will heal all the more readily.”

“I say, how do you know all this?” said the boy, looking at him

curiously. “By reading.”

“Reading! Ah, I can’t read—not much; only little words. Well, then,
if you know that, I have got to lie still, then, till the hole’s grown
up. I say, have you got that bullet safe?”

“Oh yes.”

“Don’t you lose it, mind, because I mean to keep that to show
people at home. Even if I am a boy I should like people to know
that I have been in the wars. So I have got to lie still and get well?
Won’t be bad if you could get me a bundle or two of hay and a
greatcoat to cover over me. The wind will come down pretty
cold from the mountains; but I sha’n’t mind that so long as the
bears don’t come too. I shall be all right, so you had better be off
and get back to the regiment, and tell them where you have left
me. I say, you will get promoted for it.”

“Nonsense, Punch! What for?”

“Sticking to a comrade like this. I have been thinking about it, and
I call it fine of you running back to help me, with the Frenchies
coming on. Yes, I
know. Don’t make faces about it. The colonel will have you made
corporal for trying to save me.”

“Of course!” said Pen sarcastically. “Why, I’m not much older than
you— the youngest private in the regiment; more likely to be in
trouble for not keeping in the ranks, and shirking the enemy’s
fire.”

“Don’t you tell me,” said the boy sharply. “I’ll let the colonel
and everybody know, if ever I get back to the ranks again.”

“What’s that?” said Pen sharply. “If ever you get back to the
ranks again! Why, you are not going to set up a faint heart, are
you?”

“’Tain’t my heart’s faint, but my head feels sick and swimmy. But,
I say, do you think you ought to do any more about stopping up
the hole so as to give a fellow a chance?”

“I’ll do all I can, Punch,” said Pen; “but you know I’m not a
surgeon.”

“Course I do,” said the boy, laughing, but evidently fighting

hard to hide his suffering. “You are better than a doctor.”

“Better, eh?”

“Yes, ever so much, because you are here and the doctor

isn’t.” The boy lay silent for a few minutes, evidently

thinking deeply.

“I say, private,” he said at last, “I can’t settle this all out

about what’s going to be done; but I think this will be best.”

“What?”

“What I said before. You had better wait till night, and then creep
off and follow our men’s track. It will be awkward in the dark, but
you ought to be able to find out somehow, because there’s only
one road all along by the side of this little river. You just keep
along that while it’s dark, and trust to luck when it’s daytime
again. Only, look here, my water-bottle’s empty, so, as soon as
you think it’s dark enough, down you go to the river, fill it, and
bring it back, and I shall be all right till our fellows fight their way
back
and pick me up.”

“And if they are not able to—what then?” said Pen, smiling.

“Well, I shall wait till I get so hungry I can’t wait any longer, and
then I will cry chy-ike till the Frenchies come and pick me up. But, I
say, they won’t stick a bayonet through me, will they?”

“What, through a wounded boy!” said Pen angrily. “No, they

are not so bad as that.”

“Thank ye! I like that, private. I have often wished I was a man;
but now I’m lying here, with a hole in my back, I’m rather glad
that I am only a boy. Now then, catch hold of my water-bottle. It
will soon be dark enough for you to get down to the river; and
you mustn’t lose any time. Oh, there’s one thing more, though.
You had better take my bugle; we mustn’t let the enemy have
that. I think as much of my bugle as Bony’s chaps do of their
eagles. You will take care of it, won’t you?”

“Yes, when I carry it,” said Pen quietly.

“Well, you are going to carry it now, aren’t

you?” “No,” said Pen quietly.

“Oh, you mean, not till you have fetched the

water?” Pen shook his head.

“What do you mean,

then?” “To do my duty,

boy.”

“Of course you do; but don’t be so jolly fond of calling me boy.
You said yourself a little while ago that you weren’t much older
than I am. But, I say, you had better go now; and I suppose I
oughtn’t to talk, for it makes my head turn swimmy, and we are
wasting time; and—oh, Gray,” the boy groaned, “I—I can’t help it.
I never felt so bad as this. There, do go now. Get the water, and if
I am asleep when you come back, don’t wake me so that I feel
the pain again. But—but—shake hands first, and say good-
bye.”

The boy uttered a faint cry of agony as he tried to stretch out his
hand, which only sank down helplessly by his side.

“Well, good-bye,” he panted, as Pen’s dropped slowly upon the

quivering limb. “Well, why don’t you go?”

“Because it isn’t time yet,” said Pen meaningly, as after a

glance round he drew some of the overhanging twigs of the
nearest shrub closer together, and then passed his hand across
the boy’s forehead, and afterwards held his wrist.

“Thank you, doctor,” said the boy, smiling. “That seems to have
done me good. Now then, aren’t you going?”

“No,” said Pen, with a

sigh. “I say—why?”

“You know as well as I do,” replied Pen.

“You mean that you won’t go and leave me here alone? That’s
what you mean.”

“Yes, Punch; you are quite right. But look here. Suppose I was
lying here wounded, would you go off and leave me at night on
this cold mountain- side, knowing how those brutes of wolves
hang about the rear of the army? You have heard them of a
night, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” said the boy, shudderingly drawing his breath through

his tightly closed teeth. “I say, comrade, what do you want to talk
like that for?”

“Because I want you to answer my question: Would you go off

and leave me here alone?”

“No, I’m blessed if I would,” said the boy, speaking now in a voice
full of animation. “I couldn’t do it, comrade, and it wouldn’t be like
a soldier’s son.”
“But I am not a soldier’s son, Punch.”

“No,” said the boy, “and that’s what our lads say. They don’t like
you, and they say— There, I won’t tell you what.”

“Yes, tell me, Punch. I should like to know.”

“They say that they have not got anything else against you,
only you have no business here in the ranks.”

“Why do they say that?”

“Because, when they are talking about it, they say you are a
gentleman and a scholard.”

“But I thought I was always friendly and sociable with them.”

“So you are, Private Gray,” cried the boy excitedly; “and if ever I
get back to the ranks alive I’ll tell them you are the best comrade
in the regiment, and how you wouldn’t leave me in the lurch.”

“And I shall make you promise, Punch, that you never say a word.”

“All right,” said the boy, with a faint smile, “I’ll promise. I won’t
say a word; but,” he continued, with a shudder which did not
conceal his smile, “they will be sure to find it out and get to like
you as much as I do now.”

“What’s the matter, Punch?” said Pen shortly. “Cold?”

“Head’s hot as fire, so’s my shoulder; but everywhere else I am

like ice. And there’s that swimming coming in my head again.—
I don’t mind. It’s all right, comrade; I shall be better soon, but
just now—just now—”

The boy’s voice trailed off into silence, and a few minutes later
young Private Penton Gray, of his Majesty’s newly raised —th
Rifles, nearly all fresh bearers of the weapon which was to do so
much to win the battles of the Peninsular War, prepared to keep
his night-watch on the chilly mountain-side by stripping off his
coatee and unrolling his carefully folded greatcoat to cover the
wounded lad. And that night-watch was where he could hear the
howling and answering howls of the loathsome beasts that
seemed to him to say: “This way, comrades: here, and here, for
men are lying wounded and slain; the watch-fires are distant,
and there are none to hinder us where the banquet is spread.
Come, brothers, come!”

Chapter Three.

Where the Wolves howl.

“Ugh!” A long, shivering shudder following upon the low, dismal

howl of a wolf.

“Bah! How cold it is lying out here in this chilly wind which comes
down from the mountain tops! I say, what an idiot I was to strip
myself and turn my greatcoat into a counterpane! No, I won’t
be a humbug; that wasn’t the cold. It was sheer fright—
cowardice—and I should have felt just the same if I had had a
blanket over me. The brutes! There is something so horrible
about it. The very idea of their coming down from the
mountains to follow the trail of the fighting, and hunt out the
dead or the wounded who have been forgotten or have crawled
somewhere for shelter.”

Pen Gray lay thinking in the darkness, straining his ears the while
to try and convince himself that the faint sound he heard was not
a movement made by a prowling wolf scenting them out; and as
he lay listening, he pictured to himself the gaunt, grisly beast
creeping up to spring upon him.

“Only fancy!” he said sadly. “That wasn’t the breathing of one of

the beasts, only the wind again that comes sighing down from
the mountains.
—I wish I was more plucky.”

He stretched out his hand and laid his rifle amongst the shrubs
with its muzzle pointed in the direction from whence the sighing
sound had come.

“I’ll put an end to one of them,” he muttered bitterly, “if I don’t

miss him in the dark. Pooh! They won’t come here, or if they do
I have only to jump up and the cowardly beasts will dash off at
once; but it is horrid lying here in the darkness, so solitary and so
strange. I wouldn’t care so much if the stars would come out, but
they won’t to-night. To-night? Why, it must be
nearly morning, for I have been lying here hours and hours.
And how dark it is in this valley, with the mountains towering
up on each side. I wish the day would come, but it always does
seem ten times as long when you are waiting and expecting it. It
is getting cold though. Seems to go right through to one’s
bones.—Poor boy,” he continued, as he stretched out one hand
and gently passed it beneath his companion’s covering. “He’s
warm enough. No—too hot; and I suppose that’s fever from his
wound. Poor chap! Such a boy too! But as brave as brave. He
must be a couple of years younger than I am; but he’s more of
a man. Oh, I do wish it was morning, so that I could try and do
something. There must be cottages somewhere—shepherds’ or
goat-herds’—where as soon as the people understand that we
are not French they might give me some black-bread and an
onion or two.”

The young soldier laughed a soft, low, mocking kind of laugh.

“Black-bread and an onion! How queer it seems! Why, there was

a time when I wouldn’t have touched such stuff, while now it
sounds like a feast. But let’s see; let’s think about what I have got
to do. As soon as it’s daylight I must find a cottage and try to
make the people understand what’s the matter, and get them to
help me to carry poor Punch into shelter. Another night like this
would kill him. I don’t know, though. I always used to think that
lying down in one’s wet clothes, and perhaps rain coming in the
night, would give me a cold; but it doesn’t. I must get him into
shelter, though, somehow. Oh, if morning would only come! The
black darkness makes one feel so horribly lonely.—What
nonsense! I have got poor Punch here. But he has the best of it;
he can sleep, and here I haven’t even closed my eyes. Being
hungry, I suppose.—I wonder where our lads are. Gone right off
perhaps. I hope we haven’t lost many. But the firing was very
sharp, and I suppose the French have kept up the pursuit, and
they are all miles and miles away.”

At that moment there was a sharp flash with the report of a

musket, and its echoes seemed to be thrown back from the steep
slope across the torrent, while almost simultaneously, as Gray
raised himself upon his elbow, there was another report, and
another, and another, followed by more, some of which seemed
distant and the others close at hand; while, as the echoes
zigzagged across the valley, and the lad stretched out his hand to
draw himself up into a sitting position, oddly enough that hand
touched something icy, and he snatched it back with a feeling of
annoyance, for he realised that it was only the icy metal that
formed his wounded companion’s bugle, and he lay listening to
the faint notes of another instrument calling upon the men to
assemble.

“Why, it’s a night attack,” thought Pen excitedly, and

unconsciously he began to breathe hard as he listened intently,
while he fully grasped the fact that there were men of the French
brigade dotted about in all directions.

“And there was I thinking that we were quite alone!” he said to

himself.

Then by degrees his short experience of a few months of the

British occupation on the borders of Portugal and Spain taught
him that he had been listening to a night alarm, for from out of
the darkness came the low buzz of voices, another bugle was
sounded, distant orders rang out, and then by degrees the low
murmur of voices died away, and once more all was still.

“I was in hopes,” thought Gray, “that our fellows were making a

night attack, giving the enemy a surprise. Why, there must be
hundreds within reach. That puts an end to my going hunting
about for help as soon as the day breaks, unless I mean us to be
taken prisoners. Why, if I moved from here I should be seen.—
Asleep, Punch?” he said softly.

There was no reply, and the speaker shuddered as he stretched

out his hand to feel for his companion’s forehead; but at the first
touch there was an impatient movement, and a feeling of relief
shot through the lad’s breast, for imagination had been busy, and
was ready to suggest that something horrible might have
happened in the night.

“Oh, I do wish I wasn’t such a coward,” he muttered. “He’s all

right, only a bit feverish. What shall I do? Try and go to sleep till
morning? What’s the good of talking? I am sure I couldn’t, even if
I did try.”

Then the weary hours slowly crept along, the watcher trying hard
to settle in his own mind which was the east, but failing
dismally, for the windings of the valley had been such that he
could only guess at the direction where the dawn might appear.
There were no more of the dismal bowlings of the wolves, though,
the scattered firing having effectually driven them away; but
there were moments when it seemed to the young watcher that
the night was being indefinitely prolonged, and he sighed again
and again as he strained his eyes to pierce the darkness, and
went on trying to form some plan as to his next movement.

“I wonder how long we could lie in hiding here,” he said to

himself, “without food. Poor Punch in his state wouldn’t miss
his ration; but by- and-by, if the French don’t find us, this bitter
cold will have passed away, and we shall be lying here in the
scorching sunshine—for it can be hot in these stuffy valleys—and
the poor boy will be raving for water—yes, water. Who was that
chap who was tortured by having it close to him and not being
able to reach it? Tantalus, of course! I am forgetting all my
classics. Well, soldiers don’t want cock-and-bull stories out of
Lempriere. I wonder, though, whether I could crawl down among
the bushes to the edge of the torrent and fill our water-bottles,
and get back up here again without being seen. But perhaps,
when the day comes, and if they don’t see us, the French will
move off, and then I need only wait patiently and try and find
some cottage.—Yes, what is it?”

He raised himself upon his arm again, for Punch had begun to
mutter; but there was no reply.

“Talking in his sleep,” said Pen with a sigh. “Good for him that he
can sleep! Oh, surely it must be near morning now!”

The lad sprang to his knees and placed one hand over his eyes as
he strained himself round, for all at once he caught sight of a
tiny speck as of glowing fire right overhead, and he stared in
amazement.

“Why, that can’t be daylight!” he thought. “It would appear, of

course, low down in the east, just a faint streak of dawn. That
must be some dull star peering through the clouds. Why, there
are two of them,” he said in a whisper; “no, three. Why, it is day
coming!” And he uttered a faint cry of joy as he crouched low
again and gazed, so to speak, with all his might at the wondrous
scene of beauty formed by the myriad specks of orange light
which began to spread overhead, and grow and grow till the
mighty dome that seemed supported in a vast curve by the
mountains on either
side of the valley became one blaze of light.

“Punch,” whispered Pen excitedly, “it’s morning! Look, look! How

stupid!” he muttered. “Why should I wake him to pain and
misery? Yes, it is morning, sure enough,” he muttered again, for
a bugle rang out apparently close at hand, and was answered
from first one direction and then another, the echoes taking up
the notes softly and repeating them again and again till it seemed
to the listener as if he must be lying with quite an army close at
hand awakening to the day.

The light rapidly increased, and Pen began to look in various

directions for danger, wondering the while whether some patch of
forest would offer itself as an asylum somewhere close at hand;
but he only uttered a sigh of relief as he grasped the fact that,
while high above them the golden light was gleaming down
from the sun-flecked clouds, the gorges were still full of purple
gloom, and clouds of thick mist were slowly gathering in the
valley-bottom and were being wafted along by the breath of morn
and following the course of the river.

To his great relief too, as the minutes glided by, he found that
great patches of the rolling smoke-like mist rose higher and
higher till a soft, dank cloud enveloped them where they lay, and
through it he could hear faintly uttered orders and the tramp of
men apparently gathering and passing along the shelf-like mule-
path.

“And I was longing for the sun to rise!” thought Pen.—“Ah, there’s
an officer;” for somewhere just overhead there was the sharp
click of an iron-shod hoof among the rocks. “He must have seen
us if it hadn’t been for this mist,” thought the lad. “Now if it will
only last for half an hour we may be safe.”

The mist did last for quite that space of time—in fact, until Pen
Gray was realising that the east lay right away to his right—for
a golden shaft of light suddenly shot horizontally from a gap in
the mountains, turning the heavy mists it pierced into masses of
opalescent hues; and, there before him, he suddenly caught
sight of a cameo-like figure which stood out from where he
knew that the shelf-like mule-path must run. The great bar of
golden light enveloped both rider and horse, and flashed from the
officer’s raised sword and the horse’s trappings.
Then the rolling cloud of mist swept on and blotted him from
sight, and Pen crouched closer and closer to his sleeping
comrade, and lay with bated breath listening to the tramp, tramp
of the passing men not a hundred feet above his head, and
praying now that the wreaths of mist might screen them, as they
did till what seemed to him to be a strong brigade had gone on in
the direction taken by his friends.

But he did not begin to breathe freely till the tramping of hoofs
told to his experienced ears that a strong baggage-train of mules
was on its way. Then came the tramp of men again.

“Rear-guard,” he thought; and then his heart sank once more, for
the tramping men swept by in the midst of a dense grey cloud,
which looked like smoke as it rolled right onward, and as if by
magic the sun burst out and filled the valley with a blaze of light.

“They must see us now,” groaned Pen; and he closed his eyes in
his despair.

Chapter Four.

“Water, or I shall die!”

Pen’s heart beat heavily as he lay listening to the tramping of

feet upon the rocky shelf, and at last the sounds seemed so close
that he drew himself together ready to spring to his feet and do
what he could to protect his injured comrade. For in his strange
position the idea was strong upon him that their first recognition
by the enemy might be made with the presentation of a bayonet’s
point.

But his anticipations proved to be only the work of an excited

brain; and, as he lay perfectly still once more, the heavy tramp,
tramp, a good deal wanting in the regularity of the British
troops, died out, and he relieved the oppression that bore down
upon his breast with a deep sigh.

Nothing was visible as the sounds died out; and, waiting till he felt
that he was safe, he changed his position slightly so as to try and
make out whether the rear-guard of the enemy had quite
disappeared.
In an instant he had shrunk down again amongst the bushes, for
there, about a hundred yards away, at the point of an angle
where the mule- path struck off suddenly to the left, and at a
spot that had undoubtedly been chosen for its command of the
road backward, he became aware of the presence of an outpost
of seven or eight men.

This was startling, for it put a check upon any attempt at

movement upon his own part.

Pen lay thinking for a few moments, during which he made sure
that his comrade was still plunged in a deep, stupor-like sleep.
Then, after a little investigation, he settled how he could move
slightly without drawing the attention of the vedette; and, taking
advantage thereof, crawled cautiously about a couple of yards
with the greatest care. Then, looking back as he slowly raised
his head, which he covered with a few leafy twigs, he was by no
means surprised to see at the edge of the mule-path about a
quarter of a mile away another vedette. This shut off any attempt
at retreat in that direction, and he was about to move again when
he was startled by a flash of light reflected from a musket-
barrel whose bearer was one acting as the leader of a third
vedette moving up the side of the valley across the river, and
which soon came to a halt at about the same height above the
stream as that which he occupied himself.

The lad could not control a movement of impatience as the little

knot of infantry settled themselves exactly opposite to his own
hiding-place, and in a position from which the French soldiers
must be able to control one slope of the valley for a mile in each
direction.

“It’s maddening!” thought Pen. “I sha’n’t be able to stir, and I

dare say they’ll have more vedettes stationed about. It means
giving up, and nothing else.”

Very slowly and cautiously he wrenched himself round, and then

rolled over twice so as to bring himself alongside of his sleeping
comrade; and then, as he resumed his reconnoitring, where he
was just able to command the farther side of the valley away to
his right and in a direction where he hoped to find the land clear,
he started again.
“Why, they are everywhere!” said the lad half-aloud and with a
faint groan
of dismay; for there, higher up the opposite side, were a
couple of sentries who seemed to be looking straight down upon
him. “Why, they must have seen me!” he muttered; and for quite
an hour now he lay without stirring, half in the expectation of
seeing the low bushes in motion and a little party of the blue-
coated enemy coming across to secure fresh prisoners.

But the time wore on, with the chill of the night dying out in the
warm sunshine now beginning to search Pen’s side of the valley
with the bright shafts of light, which suggested to him the
necessity for covering his well- kept rifle with the leafy twigs he
was able to gather cautiously so as not to betray his presence.

He was in the act of doing this when, turning his head slightly, a
flash of light began to play right into his eyes, and he stopped
short once more to try and make out whether this had been seen
by either of the enemy on duty, for he now awoke to the fact that
poor Punch’s bugle was lying quite exposed.

The fact was so startling that, instead of trying to reach its cord
and draw the glistening instrument towards him, he lay
perfectly still again, sweeping the sides of the valley as far as
he could in search of danger, but searching in vain, till the
thought occurred to him that he might achieve the object he
had in view by cautiously taking out his knife and cutting twig
after twig so that they might fall across the curving polished
copper.

This he contrived to do, and then lay still once more, breathing
freely in the full hope that if he gave up further attempt at
movement he might escape detection.

“Besides,” he said to himself, with a bitter smile playing upon his

lips, “if they do make us out they may not trouble, for they will
think we are dead.”

He lay still then, waiting for Punch to awaken so that he could

warn him to lie perfectly quiet.

The hours glided by, with the sun rising higher and setting the
watcher thinking, in spite of his misery, weariness, and the
pangs of hunger that
attacked him, of what a wonderfully beautiful contrast there was
between the night and the day. With nothing else that he could
do, he recalled the horrors of the past hours, the alternating
chills of cold and despair, and the howlings of the wolves; and
he uttered more than one sigh of relief as his eyes swept the
peaks away across the valley, which here and there sent forth
flashes of light from a few scattered patches of melting snow,
the beautiful violet shadows of the transverse gullies through
which sparkling rivulets descended with many a fall to join the
main stream, which dashed onward with the dull, musical roar
which rose and fell, now quite loud, then almost dying completely
away. The valley formed a very paradise to the unfortunate
fugitive, and he muttered bitterly:

“How beautiful it would have been under other circumstances,

when such a wondrous scene of peace was not disfigured by
war! So bitterly cold last night,” thought the young private
impatiently, for he was fighting now against two assaults, both of
which came upon him when he was trying hard to lie perfectly still
and maintain his equanimity while the pangs of hunger and thirst
were growing poignant. “It seems so easy,” he muttered, “to lie
still and keep silence, and here I am feeling that I must move and
do something, and wanting so horribly to talk. It would be
better if that poor boy would only awaken and speak to me. And
there’s that water, too,” he continued, as the faint plashing,
rippling sound rose to his ears from below. “Oh, how I could drink!
I wish the wind would rise, so that I couldn’t hear that dull
plashing sound. How terribly hot the sun is; and it’s getting
worse!”

Then a horrible thought struck him, that Punch might suddenly

wake up and begin to talk aloud, feverish and delirious from his
sufferings; and then when Pen’s troubles were at their very worst,
and he could hardly contain himself and keep from creeping
downwards to the water’s edge, it seemed as if a cloud swept
over him, and all was blank, for how long he could not tell, but
his fingers closed sharply to clutch the twigs and grass amongst
which he lay as he started into full consciousness.

“Why, I have been asleep!” he muttered. “I must have been;”

and he stared wildly around. There was a great shadow there,
and now the sun is beating down upon that little gully and
lighting up the flashing waters of the fall. “Why, I must have been
sleeping for hours, and it must be quite midday.”
His eyes now sought the positions of the different vedettes,
and all was so brilliant and clear that he saw where the men had
stood up their muskets against bush or tree, noted the flash
from bayonets and the duller gleam from musket-barrels. In one
case, too, the men were sheltering themselves beneath a tree,
and this sent an additional pang of suffering through the lad, as
he felt for the first time that the sun was playing with burning
force upon his neck.

“It’s of no use,” he said. “Even if they see me, I must move.”

But he made the movement with the mental excuse that it was
to see how his wounded companion fared.

It only meant seizing hold of a clump of wiry heather twice over

and drawing himself to where his face was close to the sleeper.
Then he resigned himself again with a sigh to try and bear his
position.

“He’s best off,” he muttered, “bad as he is, for he can’t feel what I
do.”

How the rest of that day of scorching sunshine and cruel thirst
passed onward Pen Gray could not afterwards recall. For the most
part it was like a feverish dream, till he awoke to the fact that the
sun was sinking fast, and that from time to time a gentle
breath of cool air was wafted down from the mountains.

Then the hunger began to torture him again, though at times

the thirst was less. His brain was clearer, though, and he lay
alternately watching the vedettes and noting that they had
somewhat changed their positions, and trying to perfect his plans
as to what he must do as soon as the shades of night should
render it possible for him to move unseen.

Finally, the last sentry was completely blotted out by the

gathering darkness; and, uttering the words aloud, “Now for it!”
Pen tried to raise himself to his knees before proceeding to
carry out his plan, when he sank back again with an ejaculation
half of wonder, half of dread. For a feeling of utter numbness shot
through him, paralysing every movement; while, prickling and
stinging, every fibre of his frame literally quivered as he lay
there in despair, feeling that all his planning had been in vain, and
that now the time had arrived when he might carry out his
attempt in safety the power of movement had absolutely gone.
How long he lay like this he could not tell, but it was until the
night-breeze was coming down briskly from the mountains, and
the sound of the plashing water far below sent a sudden feeling of
excitement through his nerves.

“Water!” he muttered. “Water, or I shall die!”

 Chapter Five.

Hard Work.

It was like coming back to life. In an instant Pen felt full of energy
and excitement once more. The pangs of hunger supplemented
those of thirst; and, almost raging against them now, he felt that
he must fight, and he rose with an effort to his feet, with the
tingling numbness feeling for the moment worse than ever, but
only to prick and spur him into action.

“Ah!” he ejaculated, “it is like life coming back.” Turning to where

his comrade lay breathing heavily, he snatched off the leafy twigs
with which he had sheltered him.

“Asleep, Punch?” he said; but he was only answered by a

low sigh. “Poor boy!” he muttered; “but I must.”

He snatched off, full of energy now, his jacket and overcoat, and
resumed them. Then, picking up his rifle, he slackened the sling
and passed it over his shoulder. In doing this he kicked against
the bugle, and slung the cord across the other shoulder. Then,
tightening the strap of his shako beneath his chin, he drew a
deep breath and looked first in the one direction and then in
another in search of the vedettes; but all was darkness for a
while, and he was beginning to feel the calm of certainty as
regarded their being perfectly free from observation, when, from
the nearest point where he had made out the watchers, he
suddenly became aware of how close one party was by seeing the
faint spark of light which the next minute deepened into a glow,
and the wind wafted to his nostrils the odour of coarse, strong
tobacco.

“Ah, nearer than I thought,” said the lad to himself, and,

looking round once more, he made out another faint glow of
light; and then, bending over his comrade, he felt about for his
hands and glided his own to the boy’s wrists, which felt dank and
cold, as he stood thinking for a moment or two of the poor
fellow’s condition.
“I can’t help it. My only hope is that he is quite insensible to pain.
He must
be, or he couldn’t sleep like this. It must be done.”

Pen’s plans had been carefully laid, and he had not anticipated
any difficulty.

“It’s only a matter of strength,” he said to himself, “and I feel

desperate and strong enough now to do anything.”

But it meant several failures, and he was checked by groan after

groan before he at last managed to seat himself with his back to
the wounded boy, after propping him up against one of the
gnarled little oak-trunks amongst which they had been lying.

Again and again he had been hindered by the rifle slung across
his back. More than once, too, he had despairingly told himself
that he must cast it aside, but only to feel that at any cost a
soldier must hold to his arms. Then it was the cartouche-box;
this, drawn round before him, he was troubled by the position of
his haversack, and ready to rage with despair at the difficulties
which he had to overcome.

At last, though, he sat there shivering, and listening to try and

make out whether the poor boy’s moanings had been heard,
before drawing a deep breath and beginning to drag the poor
fellow’s wrists over his shoulders. Then, making one tremendous
heave as he threw himself forward, he had Punch well upon his
back and staggered up, finding himself plunging down the slope
headlong as he struggled to keep his feet, but in vain; for his
balance was gone, and a heavy fall was saved by his going head
first into the tangled branches of a scrub oak, where he was
brought up short with his shako driven down over his eyes.

Penton regained his balance and his breath—to stand listening for
some sound of the enemy having taken the alarm, but all was
quite still—and, freeing his rifle, he began to use it in the
darkness as a staff of support, and to feel his way amongst the
shrubs and stones downward always, the butt saving him from
more than one fall, for he could not take a step without making
sure of a safe place for his feet before he ventured farther.

It was a long and tedious task; but in the silence of the night the
sound of the rushing water acted as a guide, and by slow
degrees, and after many
a rest, he felt at last that he must be getting nearer to the river.

But, unfortunately, the lower he plunged downwards the deeper

grew the obscurity, while the moisture from the rushing stream
made the tangled growth more dense. Consequently, he had
several times over to stop and fight his way out of some thicket
and make a fresh start.

At such times he took advantage more than once of some low-

growing horizontal oak-boughs, which barred his way and
afforded him a resting- place, across which he could lean and
make the bough an easy support for his burden.

It had seemed but a short distance down to the stream from

where he scrutinised his probable path overhead, and doubtless
without burden and by the light of day half an hour would have
been sufficient to carry him to the river’s brink; but it was in all
probability that nearer three hours had elapsed before his
farther progress was checked by his finding himself in the midst
of a perfect chaos of rocks, just beyond which the water was
falling heavily; and, utterly exhausted, he was glad to lower his
burden softly down upon a bed of loose shingle and dry sand.

“There’s nothing for it but to wait for day,” he said half-aloud, and
then— after, as best he could in the darkness, placing the
wounded boy in a comfortable position and again covering him
with his outer garments—he began to feel his way cautiously
onward till he found that every time and in whatever direction
he thrust down the butt of his rifle it plashed into rushing water
which came down so heavily that it splashed up again into his
face, and in spite of the darkness he could feel that he was
standing somewhere at the foot of a fall where a heavy volume of
water was being dashed down from a considerable height.

Pen’s first proceeding now was to go down upon his knees as

close to the torrent as he could get, and there refill his water-
bottle, before (after securing it) he leaned forward and lowered
his face until his lips touched the flowing water, and he drank till
his terrible thirst was assuaged.

This great desire satisfied, he rose again, to stand listening to the

heavy rush and roar of the falls, which were evidently close at
hand, and whose proximity produced a strange feeling of awe,
suggestive, as it were, of a
terrible danger which paralysed him for the time being and held
him motionless lest at his next step he should be swept away.

The feeling passed off directly as the thought came that his
comrade was insensible and dependent upon him for help; and
it struck him now that he might not be able in that thick
darkness to find the spot where he had left him.

This idea came upon him with such force as he made a step first
in one direction and then in another that he began to lose nerve.

“Oh, it won’t do to play the coward now,” he muttered. “I must

find him—I must! I must try till I do.”

But there is something terribly confusing in thick darkness. It is as

if a natural instinct is awakened that compels the one who is
lost to go wrong; and before Pen Gray had correctly retraced his
steps from where he had lain down to drink he had probably
passed close to his insensible companion at least a score of times,
while the sense of confusion, the nearness of danger and a
terrible death, grew and grew till in utter despair and
exhaustion he staggered a few steps and sank down almost
breathless.

“It is no good,” he groaned to himself. “I can do no more. I must

wait till daylight.”

As he lay stretched out upon his back, panting heavily from

weakness, it seemed to him that the roar of the falling water had
redoubled, and the fancy came upon him that there was a tone of
mocking triumph over his helplessness. In fact, the exertion
which he had been called upon to make, the want of sleep, and
possibly the exposure during many hours to the burning sun, had
slightly affected his brain, so that his wild imagination conjured
up non-existent dangers till all was blank, for he sank into the
deep sleep of exhaustion, and lay at last open-eyed, wondering,
and asking himself whether the foaming water that was plunging
down a few yards away was part of some dream, in which he
was lying in a fairy-like glen gazing at a rainbow, a little iris that
spanned in a bridge of beauty the sparkling water, coming and
going as the soft breeze rose and fell, while the sun sent shafts
of light through the dew-
sprinkled leaves of the many shrubs and trees that overhung the
flowing water and nearly filled the glen.

Sleep still held him in its slackening grasp, and he lay

motionless, enjoying the pleasant sense of coolness and rest till
his attention was caught by a black-and-white bird which
suddenly came into sight by alighting upon a rock in the midst of
the rushing stream.

It was one of many scattered here and there, and so nearly

covered by the water that every now and then, as the black-and-
white bird hurried here and there, its legs were nearly covered;
but it seemed quite at home, and hurried away, wading easily
and seldom using its wings, till all at once, as Pen watched, he
saw the little creature take a step, give its tail a flick, and
disappear, not diving but regularly walking into deep water, to
reappear a few yards away, stepping on to another rock, running
here and there for a few moments, and again disappearing in the
most unaccountable way.

“It is all a dream,” thought Pen. “Ducks dive, but no bird could
walk under water like that. Why, it’s swimming and using its
wings like a fish’s fins. I must be asleep.”

At that moment the bird stepped on to another rock, to stand

heel-deep; and as it was passing out of sight with a quick
fluttering of its wings, which did not seem to be wetted in the
least, Pen made an effort to raise himself on his elbow, felt a
dull, aching sensation of strain, and lost sight of the object that
had caught his attention. He found, however, that it was no
dream, for across the little torrent and high up the steep,
precipitous bank before him he could see a goat contentedly
browsing upon the tender green twigs of the bushes; while, at
his next movement, as he tried to raise himself a little more,
there within touch, and half behind him, lay the companion
whose very existence had been blotted out of his mind; and he
uttered a cry of joy—or rather felt that he did, for the sound was
covered by the roar of the falling water—and dragged himself
painfully to where he could lay one hand upon the bugle-boy’s
breast.

“Why, Punch,” he felt that he cried, as the events of the past

hours came back with a rush, “I thought I’d lost you. No, I
fancied—I— Here, am I going mad?”
He felt that he shouted that question aloud, and then, sending a
pang through his strained shoulder, he clapped his hands to his
forehead and looked down wildly at the still insensible boy.

“Here, Punch! Punch!” he repeated inaudibly. “Speak—answer!

I—oh, how stupid!” he muttered—“I am awake, and it is the
roar of that water that seems to sweep away every other
sound. Yes, that must be it;” for just then he saw that the goat
had raised its head as it gazed across at him, and stretched out
its neck.

“Why, it’s bleating,” he said to himself, “and I can’t hear a sound.”

The efforts he had made seemed to enable him to think more

clearly, and his next act was to rise to his knees stiffly and
painfully, and then begin to work his joints a little before bending
over his companion and shrinkingly laying his hand upon his
breast.

This had the desired effect—one which sent a strange feeling of

relief through the young private’s breast—for the wondering,
questioning eyes he now met looked bright and intelligent,
making him bend lower till he could speak loudly in the boy’s ear
the simple question, “How are you?”

He could hardly hear the words himself, but that they had been
heard by him for whom they were intended was evident, for
Punch’s lips moved in reply, and the next moment, to Pen’s
delight, he raised one hand to his parched lips and made a sign as
of drinking.

“Ah, you are better!” cried Pen excitedly, and this time he felt
that he almost heard his own words above the deep-toned,
musical roar.

Chapter Six.

Pen’s Patient.

Punch’s appealing sign was sufficient to chase away the

imaginative notions that had beset Pen’s awakening. His hand
went at once to the water-bottle slung to his side, and, as he held
the mouth to his comrade’s lips and forgot the pain he suffered
in his strained and stiffening joints, he
watched with a feeling of pleasure the avidity with which the boy
drank; and as he saw the strange bird flit by once more he
recalled having heard of such a bird living in the west country.

“Yes,” he said to himself, “I remember now—the dipper. Busy

after water- beetles and perhaps after tiny fish.—You are better,
Punch, or you wouldn’t drink like that;” and he carefully lowered
the boy’s head as he ceased drinking. “Yes, and though I can’t
hear you, you have come to your senses again, or you would not
look at me like that.—Ah, I forgot all about them!” For a sound
other than that produced by the falling waters came faintly to his
ear. It was from somewhere far above, and echoed twice. “Yes, I
had forgotten all about them.”

He began looking anxiously about him, taking in the while that he

was close to the river where it ran in a deep, precipitous gully;
and as he looked up now to right and then to left, eagerly and
searchingly, for the danger that he knew could not be far away,
his eyes ranged through densely wooded slopes, lit up here and
there by the morning sunshine, and always sweeping the sides of
the valley in search of the vedettes, but without avail, not even
the rugged mule-path that ran along the side being visible.

“They are not likely to see us here,” Pen said to himself, “and
they can’t have seen me coming down. Oh, what a job it was! I
feel as if I must have been walking in my sleep half the time, and
I am so stiff I can hardly move. But I did it, and we must be safe if
we can keep out of sight; and that ought to be easy, for they are
not likely to come down here. Now, what’s to be done?”

That was a hard question to answer; but growing once more

full of energy now that he was satisfied that there was no
immediate danger, Pen stepped back lamely, as if every muscle
were strained, to his companion’s side, to be greeted with a
smile and a movement of the boy’s lips.

“Now, let’s see to your wound,” he said, with his lips to the boy’s
ear; and he passed one hand under Punch’s wounded shoulder to
try and turn him over. This time, as Punch’s lips parted and his
face grew convulsed with pain, Pen’s ears mastered the roar, and
he heard the sufferer’s cry.
“Hurt you too much?” he said, as he once more put his lips to the
boy’s ear.

The answer was a nod.

“Well,” thought Pen, “he must be better, so I’ll let him be; but
we can’t stop here. I must try and get him through the trees and
away from this horrible noise. But I can’t do it now. At least, I
don’t think I can. Then, what’s next?”

The inaudible reply to the question came from somewhere inside,

and he bent closer over Punch once more.

“Aren’t you hungry?” he roared in his

ear. The boy shook his head.

“Well, I am,” shouted Pen.—“Oh, how stupid! This is like telling

the enemy where we are, if they are anywhere within hearing.
Hullo, what does this mean?” For he suddenly caught sight of the
goat springing from stone to stone low down the stream as if
coming to their side of the rushing water; and with the thought
filling his mind that a tame goat like this must have an owner
who was more likely to be an enemy of strangers than a friend,
Pen began searching the rugged slopes on both sides of the river,
but in vain. The goat, which had crossed, was now coming slowly
towards them, appearing to be quite alone, though soon proving
itself to be quite accustomed to the presence of human beings,
for it ended by trotting over the sand and shingle at the river’s
edge till it had approached them quite closely, to stand bleating
at them, doubtless imploringly, though no sound was heard.

This lasted for a few minutes, and then the goat moved away,
passing Punch, and disappearing upward through the dense
growth, and apparently making its way up by the side of the
great fall.

No sooner was it out of sight than a thought struck Pen; and,

making a sign to his companion that meant “I won’t be long,” he
shouldered his rifle and began to climb upwards in the direction
taken by the goat.

He was beginning to regret now that he had not started sooner, for
there
was no sign of the little beast, and he was about to turn when,
just to his right, he noted faint signs of what seemed to be a
slightly used track which was easy to follow, and, stepping out,
he observed the trees were more open, and at the end of a few
minutes he found himself level with the top of the falls, where
the river was gliding along in a deep, glassy sheet before making
its plunge over the smooth, worn rocks into a basin below.

He had just grasped this when he saw that the faint track bore off
to the right, and caught sight of the goat again moving
amongst the trees, and for the next few minutes he had no
difficulty in keeping it in sight, and, in addition, finding that it was
making for what seemed to be the edge of another stream which
issued from a patch of woodland on its way to the main torrent.

“I must get him here if I can,” thought Pen, for the roar of the
falling waters was subdued into a gentle murmur, and to his
surprise he caught sight of a shed-like building amongst the trees,
fenced in by piled-up pieces of stone evidently taken from the
smaller stream which he approached; and it was plain that this
was the spot for which the goat had been making.

The young rifleman stopped short, trying to make out whether the
place was inhabited; but he could see no sign save that the
goat was making for the stone fence, on to which the active
beast leaped, balanced itself carefully for a few moments, and
then sprang down on the other side, to be greeted by a burst
of bleating that came from apparently two of its kind within.

Pen stood screened by the trees for a time, fully expecting to see
some occupant of the hut make his appearance; but the
bleating ceased directly, and, approaching carefully, the young
private stood at last by the rough stone wall, looking down on a
scene which fully explained the reason for the goat’s visit.

She had returned to her kids; and after climbing the wall a
very little search showed the visitor that the goat and her young
ones were the sole occupants of the deserted place.
It was the rough home of a peasant who had apparently forsaken
it upon the approach of the French soldiery. Everything was of the
simplest kind; but situated as Pen Gray was it presented itself
in a palatial guise, for there was everything that he could wish
for at a time like that.

As before said, it was a shed-like structure; but there was bed and
fireplace, a pile of wood outside the door, and, above all, a roof to
cover those who sought shelter.

“Yes, I must bring him here somehow,” thought Pen as he

caught sight of a cleanly scrubbed pail and a tin or two
hanging upon nails in the wall. But he saw far more than this, for
his senses were sharpened by hunger; and with a smile of
satisfaction he hurried out, noting as he passed them that the
kids, keen of appetite, were satisfying their desire for food; and,
hurrying onwards, he made his way back to where he had left his
companion lying in the dry, sandy patch of shingle; and some
hours of that forenoon were taken up in the painful task of
bearing the wounded lad by slow degrees to where, after much
painful effort, they could both look down upon the nearly hidden
shed.

“How are you now, Punch?” asked Pen, turning his head

upwards. There was no reply.

“Why, Punch,” cried Pen, “you are not asleep, are you?”

“Asleep!” said the boy bitterly; and then, in a faint whisper, “set me
down.”

Pen took a step forward to where he could take hold of a stunted

oak- bough whose bark felt soft and strange; and, holding
tightly with one hand, he held his burden with the other while he
sank slowly, the branch bending the while till he was kneeling.
Then he slid his load down amongst the undergrowth and
quickly opened his water-bottle and held it to the boy’s lips.

“Feel faint, lad?” he said.

Again there was no answer; but Punch swallowed a few

mouthfuls. “Ah, that’s better,” he said. “Head’s swimming.”
“Well, you shall lie still for a few minutes till you think you can
bear it, and then I want you to get down to that hut.”

Punch looked up at him with misty eyes,

wonderingly. “Hut!” he said faintly. “What hut?”

“The one I told you about. You will be able to see it when you are
better. There’s a rough bed there where you will be able to lie and
rest till your wound heals.”

“Hut!”

“Oh, never mind now. Will you have some more

water?” The boy shook his head.

“Not going to die, am I?” he said feebly.

“Die! No!” cried Pen, with his heart sinking. “A chap like you isn’t
going to die over a bit of a wound.”

“Don’t,” said the boy faintly, but with a tone of protest in his
words. “Don’t gammon a fellow! I am not going to mind if I am.
Our chaps don’t make a fuss about it when their time comes.”

“No,” said Pen sharply; “but your time hasn’t

come yet.” The boy looked up at him with a

peculiar smile.

“Saying that to comfort a fellow,” he almost whispered;

“only, I say, comrade, you did stick to me, and you won’t—won’t
—”

“Won’t what?” said Pen sharply. “Leave you now? Is it

likely?” “Not a bit yet,” said the poor fellow faintly; “but I

didn’t mean that.” “Then what did you mean?” cried Pen

wonderingly.
The poor lad made a snatch at his companion’s arm, and tried
to draw him down.
“What is it?” said Pen anxiously now, for he was startled by
the look in the boy’s eyes.

“Want to whisper,” came in a broken voice.

“No; you can’t have anything to whisper now,” said Pen. “There,
let me give you a little more water.”

The boy shook his head.

“Want to whisper,” he murmured in a harsh, low voice.

“Well, what is it? But you had better not. Shut your eyes and
have a bit of a nap till you are rested and the faintness has gone.
I shall be rested, too, then, and I can get you down into the hut,
where I tell you there’s a bed, and, better still, Punch, a draught
of sweet warm milk.”

“Gammon!” said the boy again; and he hung more heavily upon
Pen’s arm.—“Want to whisper.”

“Well, what is it?” said Pen, trying hard to master the feeling
of despair that was creeping over him.

“Them wolves!” whispered the boy. “Don’t let them get me,
comrade, when I’m gone.”

“You shut your eyes and go to sleep,” cried Pen angrily.

“No,” said the boy, speaking more strongly now. “I aren’t a baby,
and I know what I’m saying. You tell me you won’t let them have
me, and then I will go to sleep; and then if I don’t wake up no
more—”

“What!” cried Pen, speaking with a simulated anger, “you won’t

be such a coward as to go and leave me all alone here?”

The boy started; his eyes brightened a little, and he gazed half-
wonderingly in his companion’s face.

“I—I didn’t think of that, comrade,” he faltered. “I was thinking I

was going like some of our poor chaps; but I don’t want to shirk.
There, I’ll try not.”
“Of course you will,” said Pen harshly. “Now then, try and have a
nap.”

The boy closed his eyes, and in less than a minute he was
breathing steadily and well, but evidently suffering now and
then in his sleep, for the hand that clasped Pen’s gave a sudden
jerk at intervals.

Quite an hour, during which the watcher did not stir, till there
was a sharper twitch and the boy’s eyes opened, to look
wonderingly in his companion’s as if he could not recall where he
was.

“Have a little water now, Punch?”

“Drop,” he said; but the drop proved to be a thirsty draught, and

he spoke quite in his senses now as he put a brief question.

“Is it far?” he said.

“To the hut? No. Do you think you can bear me to get you on my
back again?”

“Yes. Going to. Look sharp!”

But as soon as the boy felt his companion take hold of his
hand after restopping the water-bottle, Punch whispered, “Stop!”

“What is it? Would you like to wait a little

longer?” “No. Give me a bullet out of a

cartridge.”

“A bullet? What for?”

“To bite,” said the boy with a grim smile.

Pen hesitated for a moment in doubt, looking in the boy’s

smiling eyes the while. Then, as a flash of recollection of stories
he had heard passed through his mind, he hastily drew a
cartridge from his box, broke the little roll open, scattering the
powder and setting the bullet free before passing it to his
companion, who nodded in silence as he seized the piece of lead
between his teeth. Then, nodding again, he raised one hand,
which Pen took, and seizing one of the branches of the gnarled
tree he bent it down
till he got it close to his companion, and bade him hold on with all
his might.

Punch’s fingers closed tightly upon the bough, which acted like a
spring and helped to raise its holder sufficiently high for Pen to
get him once more upon his shoulders, which he had freed from
straps thrown down beside his rifle.

“Try and bear it,” he panted, as he heard the low, hissing breath
from the poor fellow’s lips, and felt him quiver and wince. “I
know it’s bad,” he added encouragingly, “but it won’t take me
long.”

It did not, for in a very few minutes he had reached the rough
stone wall, to which he shifted his burden, stood for a few
moments panting, and then climbed over, took the sufferer in his
arms, and staggered into the waiting shelter, where the next
minute Punch was lying insensible upon the bed.

“Ha!” ejaculated Pen as he passed the back of his hand across his
streaming forehead.

This suggested another action, but it was the palm of his hand
that he laid across his companion’s brow.

“All wet!” he muttered. “He can’t be very feverish for the

perspiration to come like that.”

Then he started violently, for a shadow crossed the open door,

and he involuntarily threw up one hand to draw his slung rifle
from his shoulder, and then his teeth snapped together.

There was no rifle there. It was lying with his cartouche-box right
away by the stunted oak, as he mentally called the cork-tree.

The next minute he was breathing freely, for the deep-toned bleat
of the goat arose, and he looked out, to see that it was
answerable for the shadow.

“Ah, you will have to pay for this,” he muttered, as he started to

run to where his weapon lay, his mind full now of thoughts that in
his efforts over
his comrade had been absent.

He was full of expectation that one or other of the vedettes might

have caught sight of him bearing his load to the hut; and, with the
full determination to get his rifle and hurry back to defend himself
and his companion for as long as the cartridges held out, he
started with a run up the slope, which proved to be only the
stagger of one who was utterly exhausted, and degenerated
almost into a crawl.

He was back at last, to find that Punch had not moved, but
seemed to be sleeping heavily as he lay upon his sound shoulder;
and, satisfied by this, Pen laid his rifle and belts across the foot of
the bed and drew a deep breath.

“I can’t help it,” he nearly groaned. “It isn’t selfish; but if I don’t
have something I can do no more.”

Then, strangely enough, he uttered a mocking laugh as he

stepped to a rough shelf and took a little pail-like vessel with
one stave prolonged into a handle from the place where it had
been left clean by the last occupant of the hut, and as he
stepped with it to the open door something within it rattled.

He looked down at it in surprise and wonder, and it was some

moments before he grasped the fact that the piece of what
resembled blackened clay was hard, dry cake.

“Ah!” he half-shouted as he raised it to his lips and tried to

bite off a piece, but only to break off what felt like wood, which
refused to crumble but gradually began to soften.

Then, smiling grimly, he thrust the cake within his jacket and
stepped out, forgetting his pain and stiffness, to find to his dismay
that there was no sign of the goat.

“How stupid!” he muttered the next minute. “My head won’t go. I
can’t think.” And, recalling the goat’s former visit to the rough
shelter, he hurried to where he had been a witness of its object,
and to his great delight found the animal standing with half-
closed eyes nibbling at some of the plentiful herbage while one
of its kids was partaking of its evening
meal.

Pen advanced cautiously with the little wooden vessel, ready to

seize the animal by one of its horns if it attempted to escape, as it
turned sharply and stared at him in wonder; but it only sniffed as
if in recognition at the little pail, and resumed its browsing. But
the kid was disposed to resent the interruption of the stranger,
and some little force had to be used to thrust it away, returning
again and again to begin to make some pretence of butting at the
intruder.

Pen laughed aloud at the absurdity of his task as he finally got rid
of the little animal, and made his first essay at milking, finding
to his great delight that he was successful, while the goat-
mother took it all as a matter of course, and did not move
while her new friend refreshed himself with a hearty draught of
the contents of the little pail; and then, snatching at a happy
thought, drew the hardened cake from his breast and placed it
so that it could soak up the soft warm milk which flowed into the
vessel.

“Ah!” sighed the young soldier, “who’d have thought that taking
the king’s shilling would bring a fellow to this? Now for poor
Punch. Well, we sha’n’t starve to-night.”

Once more as he turned from the goat the thought assailed him
that one of the vedettes might be in sight; but all was still and
beautiful as he stepped back slowly, eating with avidity portions
of the gradually softening black-bread, and feeling the while
that life and hope and strength were gradually coming back.

“Now for poor Punch!” he muttered again; and, entering the

rough shelter once more, he stood looking down upon the
wounded boy, who was sleeping heavily, so soundly that Pen
felt that it would be a cruelty to rouse him. So, partaking
sparingly of his novel meal, he placed a part upon a stool within
reach of the rough pallet.

“Wounded men don’t want food,” he muttered. “It’s Nature’s way

of keeping off fever; and I must keep watch again, and give him
a little milk when he wakes. Yes, when he wakes—when he
wakes,” he muttered, as he settled himself upon the earthen
floor within touch of his sleeping
comrade. “Mustn’t close the door,” he continued, with a little
laugh, “for there doesn’t seem to be one; and, besides, it would
make the place dark. Why, there’s a star peeping out over the
shoulder of the mountain, and that soft, low, deep hum is the
falling water. Why, that must be the star I used to see at home
in the old days; and, oh, how beautiful and restful everything
seems! But I mustn’t go to sleep.—Are you asleep, Punch?” he
whispered softly. “Poor fellow! That’s right. Sleep and Nature will
help you with your wound; but I must keep awake. It would
never do for you to rouse up and find me fast. No,” he half-
sighed. “Poor lad, you mustn’t go yet where so many other poor
fellows have gone. A boy like you! Well! It’s the—fortune—fortune
—of war—and—and—”

Nature would take no denial. Pen Gray drew one long, deep,
restful breath as if wide-awake, and then slowly and as if
grudgingly respired.

Fast asleep.

Chapter Seven.

More about him.

It was bright daylight, and Pen Gray started up in alarm, his

mind in a state of confusion consequent upon the heaviness of
his sleep and the feeling of trouble that something—he knew not
what—had happened.

For a few moments he was divided between the ideas that the
enemy had come to arrest him and that his companion had
passed away in his sleep. But these were only the ragged
shadows of the night, for the boy was still sleeping soundly, the
food remained untouched, and, upon cautiously looking outside,
there was nothing to be seen but the beauties of a sunny morn.

Pen drew a deep breath as he returned to the hut, troubled with a

sensation of weariness and strain, but still light-hearted and
hopeful.

There was something invigorating in the mountain air even deep

down there in the valley, and he was ready to smile at his
position as his eyes lit upon the little pail.
“Oh, I say,” he said to himself, “it is like temptation placed in
one’s way! How horribly hungry I am! Well, no wonder; but I must
play fair.”

Taking out his knife, he was about to divide the piece of cake,
which had so swollen up in the milk that there seemed to be a
goodly portion for two; but, setting his teeth hard, he shut the
knife with a snap and pulled himself together.

“Come,” he muttered, “I haven’t gone through all this drilling for

months to snatch the first chance to forget it. I will begin the
day by waiting until poor Punch wakes.”

He gave another look at his companion to make sure that he was

still sleeping soundly and was no worse; and then, after
glancing at the priming of his rifle, he stepped out to
reconnoitre, keeping cautiously within shelter of the trees, but
not obtaining a glimpse of any of the vedettes.

“Looks as if they have gone,” he thought, and he stepped to the

edge of another patch of woodland to again sweep the valley-
sides as far as was possible.

This led him to the edge of the river, where, as soon as he

appeared, he was conscious of the fact that scores of semi-
transparent-looking fish had darted away from close to his feet, to
take shelter beneath stones and the bank higher up the stream,
which glided down towards the fall pure as crystal and sparkling
in the sun.

“Trout!” he exclaimed. “Something to forage for; and then a fire.

Doesn’t look like starving.”

Pen took another good look round, but nothing like a vedette or
single sentry was in view; and after a few moments of hesitation
he snatched at the opportunity.

Stepping back into the shelter of the woods, he hurriedly stripped,

after hanging his rifle from a broken branch, and then dashing out
into the sunshine he leaped at once into the beautiful, clear,
sparkling water, which flashed up at his plunge. Then striking out,
he swam with vigorous strokes right into the depths, and felt
that he was being carried steadily
downward towards the fall.

This was something to make him put forth his strength; and as he
struck out upstream so as to reach the bank again there was
something wondrously invigorating in the cool, crisp water which
sent thrills of strength through his exhausted frame, making the
lad laugh aloud as he fought against the pressure of the water,
won, and waded ashore nearly a hundred yards below where he
had plunged in.

“What a stream!” he exclaimed as he shook the streaming water

from his tense muscles. “I must mind another time. How cold it
was! But how hot the sun feels! Double!” he ejaculated, and he
started along the bank in a military trot, reached the spot again
where he had made his plunge, looked round, indulged in
another run in the brilliant sunshine, and, pretty well half-dried by
his efforts, stepped back into the wood and rapidly resumed his
clothes.

“Why, it has pretty well taken the stiffness out of me,” he

muttered, “and I feel ready for anything, only I’m nearly
famished. Here, I can’t wait,” he added, as he finished dressing,
smartening himself up into soldierly trim, and giving his feet a
stamp or two as he resumed his boots. “Now, how about poor
Punch? He can’t be worse, for he seemed to have slept so well. It
seems hard, but I must wake him up.”

To the lad’s great satisfaction, as he reached the door of the

rough cabin, he found that the wounded boy was just unclosing
his eyes to look at him wonderingly as if unable to make out what
it all meant.

“Gray,” he said faintly.

“Yes. How are you,

lad?”

“I—I don’t quite know,” was the reply, given in a faint voice.
—“Oh, I recollect now. Yes. There, it stings—my wound.”

“Yes, I’ll bathe it and see to it soon,” said Pen eagerly; “but
you are no worse.”
“Ain’t I? I—I thought I was. I say, look here, Gray; what does this
mean? I can’t lift this arm at all. It hurts so.”
“Yes. Stiff with your wound; but it will be better when I have done

it up.” “Think so?”

“Yes.”

“But look here.”

“Yes, I am

looking.”

“This arm isn’t wounded. Look at that.”

“Yes, I see; you lifted it up and it fell down

again.” “Yes. There’s no strength in it. It ain’t

dead yet?”

“Didn’t seem like it,” said Pen, smiling cheerily. “You lifted it up.”

“Yes, I know; but it fell back again. And what’s the matter with my

voice?” “Nothing.”

“Yes, there is,” cried the boy peevishly. “It’s all gone squeaky
again, like it was before it changed and turned gruff. I say, Gray,
am I going to be very bad, and never get well again?”

“Not you! What

nonsense!” “But I am so

weak.”

“Well, you have seen plenty of our poor fellows in hospital,

haven’t you?” “Yes, some of them,” said the boy feebly.

“Well, weren’t they weak?”

“Yes, I forgot all that; but I wasn’t so bad as this yesterday. It was
yesterday, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Don’t you remember?”
“No. How was it?”

“There, don’t you bother your brains about

that.” “But I want to know.”

“And I want you to do all you can to get

well.” “Course you do. ’Tisn’t fever, is it?”

“Fever! No! Yes, you were feverish. Every one is after a

wound. Now then,” And he took out and opened his knife.

“Wound! Wound!” said the boy, watching him. “Whatcher going

to do with your knife? Take your bay’net if you want to finish a
fellow off.”

“Well, I don’t,” said Pen, laughing.

“’Tain’t anything to laugh at,

comrade.”

“Yes, it is, when you talk nonsense. Now then, breakfast.”

“Don’t gammon,” said the poor fellow feebly. “My head isn’t all
swimmy now. Beginning to remember. Didn’t you carry me down
here?”

“To be sure, and precious heavy you were!”

“Good chap!” said the boy, sighing. “You always was a trump;
but don’t play with a poor fellow. There can’t be no breakfast.”

“Oh, can’t there? I’ll show you; and I want to begin. I say,
Punch, I’m nearly starved.”

“I’m not,” said the poor fellow sadly. “I couldn’t eat.”

“Oh, well, you have got to, so look sharp, or I shall go

mad.” “Whatcher mean?”

“I told you I’m starving. I have hardly touched anything for

two days except water.”
“Well, go on then. What is there for

breakfast?” “Bread.”

“Ugh! Don’t! Black dry bread! It makes me feel

sick.” “Bread and milk.”

“Where did you get the milk?”

“Never you mind,” said Pen, plunging his knife into the dark
sop which half-filled the little pail. “Now then, you have got to eat
first.”

“No, don’t ask me; I can’t touch it,” and the boy closed his
eyes against the piece of saturated bread that his companion
held out to him on the knife.

“You must,” said Pen; “so look

sharp.” “I can’t, I tell you.”

“Well, then, I shall have to

starve.” “No, no; go on.”

“After you.”

It took a good deal of pressure, but at last the truth of the French
saying about its being only the first step that costs was proved,
for after the first mouthful, of which the poor fellow
shudderingly partook, the boy consented to open his mouth
again, after holding out until his amateur surgeon and nurse had
consented to share the meal, which proved refreshing to the
patient, who partook of a little; while, bearing in mind that he
could at all events restore the fluid food, Pen ate ravenously, his
spirits rising with every mouthful.

“It will go hard,” he said to himself, “if I can’t forage something

else. There are the trout, to begin with. I know I can catch some of
them in the shallows, and that too without rod or line. That is,”
he added, “if we are not found out and marched off as
prisoners.”
“Whatcher thinking about?” said Punch drowsily.

“Catching fish, and making a fire to cook them.”

“There’s my flint and steel in my satchel, but where’s

your fish?” “In the river.”

“But you can’t catch

’em.” “Oh, can’t I,

Punch?”

“Oh yes, I know,” piped the boy. “They are trout. I saw some
the other day when we crossed that stream. I saw some run
under the stones, and wanted to creep up and tiddle one, only I
couldn’t leave the ranks.”

“Ah, well, there are no ranks to leave now, Punch, and we shall
have plenty of time to tiddle the trout, as you call it, for we shall
have to stay here till you get well.”

“I say, don’t talk, please. Want to go to sleep.”

“That’s right,” said Pen cheerfully. “Sleep away, and I won’t bathe
your wound till you wake again.”

The boy made no answer, but dropped off at once.

“That’s better,” thought Pen, “and while he sleeps I will see

whether I can’t get some of the trout.”

He waited until his companion was breathing heavily, and then he

seated himself by the door and began to carefully clean his rifle
and accoutrements, which soldierly task at an end, he stood over
the sleeping boy a few minutes, and then stepped outside the
dark hut to plunge into the sunshine; but, recollecting himself, he
stepped in amongst the trees, and keeping close in their shelter
moved from spot to spot spending nearly half an hour searching
every eminence for signs of danger.

“The coast seems clear,” he said to himself, “and the enemy may
have moved on; but I must be careful. I want to join our fellows,
of course; but
if I’m made prisoner it will be the death of poor Punch, for
they are not very careful about prisoners, and—”

Pen stopped short as he held on to the bough of one of the

stunted trees growing in the rocky bottom and peered out to
sweep the side of the valley where he felt that the mule-track
ought to be.

He started back as if the bullet that had been fired from a musket
had cut the leaves above his head and stood listening to the roll
of echoes which followed the shot. Then there was another, and
another, followed by scores, telling him that a sharp skirmish had
begun; and after a while he could just make out a faint cloud of
smoke above the trees, where the dim vapour was slowly rising.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s where I thought the mule-path must be.

But what a height it is up! And what does it mean? Are our fellows
coming back and driving the enemy before them, or is it the other
way on?”

There was no telling; but when, about an hour later, the firing had
grown nearer and then slowly become more and more distant till
it died away, Pen had learned one thing, and that was the
necessity for keeping carefully in hiding, for the enemy must be
somewhere near.

He stepped back into the hut after silence once more reigned in
the false scene of peace, and found that the peppering of the
musketry had had no effect upon the sleeper, who did not stir
when he leant over him and laid his hand upon the poor fellow’s
forehead, which was cool and moist.

“Ha!” sighed Pen, “he’s not going to die; but he will be as weak
as weak for a month to come, and I ought to have been with our
fellows instead of hiding here, for I have no business to be doing
ambulance work, and so they would tell me. Ah!” he ejaculated,
as he started to the door again, for from somewhere much farther
away there came the deep roll of a platoon of musketry, which
was repeated again and again, but always more distant, though
growing, while still more faintly, into the sounds of a sharp
engagement, till it died quite away.

“I never thought of that. That first firing I heard must have

been the enemy. I wonder I didn’t think so before. I am sure now.
There wasn’t a single shot that I could have said was from a
rifle. But it is impossible to
say for certain which side is holding the valley. At any rate our
fellows were not there.”

Chapter Eight.

The King’s Shilling.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha!” A bright, ringing specimen of a youth’s laugh,

given out by one who is healthy, strong, and fairly content,
allowing for drawbacks, with the utterer’s position in life.

“Whatcher laughing at?” followed in the querulous tones of one

who was to a great extent at the opposite pole of life.

“You, Punch.”

“I don’t see nothing to laugh at, sick and weak as I am.”

“Yes, you are weak enough, and don’t know the difference as I do.”

“Difference! There ain’t no difference. I’m a regular invalid, as

they calls them, and just as bad as some of our poor chaps who
go back to live on the top of a wooden leg all the rest of their
lives.”

“Stuff and nonsense, Punch! You are getting better and stronger
every day.”

“I ain’t. Look at that arm; it’s as thin as a mop-stick.”

“Well, it is thin, certainly; but a chap of your age, growing fast,

generally is thin.”

“Ya! Growing! How can a fellow grow with a hole in his

back?” “You haven’t got a hole in your back. It’s

healing up fast.” “’Taint.”

“Yes, it is. You haven’t seen it, and I have every day. I say it’s
healing
beautifully.”

“Ah, you’ll say next that I ain’t

weak.” “No, I shan’t.”

“Well, that’s because you are always trying to make me think

that I am better than I am.”

“Well, what of that? I don’t want to put you out of heart.”

“No, but you needn’t gammon me. I know I ain’t as weak as a

rat, because I am ten times weaker. I have got no wind at all; and
I do wish you wouldn’t be always wallacking me down to that big
waterfall. I’m always pumped out before I get half-way there,
and quite done up before I get back. What’s the good of going
there?”

“Beautiful place, Punchy, and the mountain air seems to come

down with the water and fill you full of strength.”

“Does you perhaps, but it don’t do me no good. Beautiful place

indeed! Ugly great hole!”

“’Tisn’t; it’s lovely. I don’t believe we shall ever see a more

beautiful spot in our lives.”

“It makes me horrible. I feel sometimes as if I could jump in

and put myself out of my misery. Just two steps, and a fellow
would be washed away to nowhere.”

“Why, you have regularly got the grumps to-day, Punch; just, too,
when you were getting better than ever.”

“I ain’t, I tell you. I had a look at myself this morning while you
were snoring, and I am as thin as a scarecrow. My poor old
mother wouldn’t know me again if ever I got back; and I sha’n’t
never see our old place no more.”

“Yes, you will, Punch—grown up into a fine, manly-looking

British rifleman, for you will be too big to blow your bugle then.
You might believe
me.”

“Bugle! Yes, I didn’t give it a rub yesterday. Just hand it off that
peg.”

Pen reached the bugle from where it hung by its green cord, and
the lines in Punch’s young forehead began to fade as he gave the
instrument a touch with his sleeve, and then placed the
mouthpiece to his lips, filled out his sadly pale, hollow cheeks,
and looked as if he were going to blow with all his might, when
he was checked by Pen clapping his hand over the glistening
copper bell.

“Whatcher doing of?” cried the boy angrily.

“Stopping you. There, you see you are better. You couldn’t
have attempted that a while ago.”

“Ya! Think I’m such a silly as to bring the enemy down

upon us?” “Well, I didn’t know.”

“Then you ought to. I should just like to give the call, though, to
set our dear old lads going along the mountain-side there
skirmishing and peppering the frog-eating warmints till they ran
for their lives.”

“Hurrah!” shouted Pen. “Who’s trying to bring the enemy down

upon us now, when we know there are some of them sneaking
about in vedettes as they hold both ends of the valley. Now
you say you are not better if you dare.”

“Oh, I don’t want to fall out,” grumbled the invalid. “You think
you know, but you ain’t got a wound in your back to feel when a
cold wind comes off the mountains. I think I ought to know best.”

“But you don’t, Punch. Those pains will die out in time, and you
will go on growing, and keeping thin perhaps for a bit; but your
muscles will fill out by-and-by, same as mine do in this beautiful
air.”

“Needn’t be so precious proud of them,” said the boy

sourly. “I’m not. There, have another fish.”
“Sha’n’t. I’m sick to death on them. They are only Spanish or
Portuguee trout, and not half so good as roach and dace out of a
good old English pond.”

Pen laughed merrily again.

“Ah, grin away! I think I ought to know.”

“Yes—better than to grumble when I have broiled the fish so

nicely over the wood embers with sticks I cut for skewers. They
were delicious, and I ate till I felt ashamed.”

“So you ought to be.”

“To enjoy myself so,” continued Pen, “while you, with your
mouth so out of taste and no appetite, could hardly eat a bit.”

“Well, who’s to have a happetite with a wound like mine? I shall

never get no better till I get a mug of real old English beer.”

“Never mind; you get plenty of milk.”

“Ya! Nasty, sickly stuff! I’ll never touch it

again.” “Well then, beautiful sparkling

water.”

“Who wants sparkling water? ’Tain’t like English. It’s so thin and

cold.” “Come, come; you must own that you are mending fast,

Punch.”

“Who wants to be mended,” snarled the poor fellow, “and go

through life like my old woman’s cracked chayney plate with the
rivet in it! I was a strong lad once, and could beat any drummer in
the regiment in a race, while now I ought to be in horspital.”

“No, you ought not. I’ll tell you what you want,

Punch.” “Oh, I know.”

“No, you don’t. You want to get just a little stronger, so as you
can walk ten miles in a day.”
“Ten miles! Why, I used to do twenty easy.”

“So you will again, lad; but I mean in a night, for we shall have to
lie up all day and march all night so as to keep clear of the
enemy.”

“Then you mean for us to try and get out of this wretched hole?”

“I mean for us to go on tramp as soon as you are quite strong

enough; and then you will think it’s a beautiful valley. Why,
Punch, I have crept about here of a night while you have been
asleep, so that I have got to know the place by heart, and I should
like to have the chance of leading our fellows into places I know
where they could hold it against ten times or twenty times their
number of Frenchmen who might try to drive them out.”

“You have got to know that?” said Punch with a show of

animation that had grown strange to the poor fellow.

“Yes,” cried Pen triumphantly.

“Well, then, all I have got to say is you waren’t playing fair.”

“Of course it wasn’t. Seeing you were so weak you couldn’t

walk.” “There now, you are laughing at a fellow; but you

don’t play fair.” “Don’t I? In what way?”

“Why, you promised while I have been so bad that you would
read to me a bit.”

“And I couldn’t, Punch, because we have got nothing to read.”

“And then you promised that you would tell me how it was you
come to take the king’s shilling.”

“Well, yes, I did; but you don’t want to know

that.” “Yes, I do. I have been wanting to know

ever since.” “Why, boy?”

“Because it seems so queer that a lad like you should join the
ranks.”

“Why queer? You are too young yet, but you will be in the
ranks some day as a full private.”

“Yes, some day; but then, you see, my father was a soldier. Yours
warn’t, was he?”

“No-o,” said Pen, frowning and looking straight away before

him out of the hut-door.

“Well, then, why don’t you speak out?”

“Because I don’t feel much disposed. It is rather a tender subject,

Punch.”

“There, I always knew there was something. Look here; you and
me’s friends and comrades, ain’t we?”

“I think so, Punch. I have tried to be.”

“So you have. Nobody could have been better. I have lain awake
lots of times and thought about what you did. You haven’t
minded my saying such nasty things as I have sometimes?”

“Not I, Punch. Sick people are often irritable.”

“Yes,” said the boy eagerly, “that’s it. I have said lots of things
to you that I didn’t mean; but it’s when my back’s been very bad,
and it seemed to spur me on to be spiteful, and I have been very
sorry sometimes, only I was ashamed to tell you. But you haven’t
done anything to be ashamed of?” Pen was silent for a few
moments.

“Ashamed? No—yes.”

“Well, you can’t have been both,” said the boy. “Whatcher mean by
that?”

“There have been times, Punch, when I have felt ashamed of

what I have done.”

“Why, what have you done? I don’t believe it was ever anything
bad. You
say what it was. I’ll never

tell.” “Enlisted for a

soldier.”

“What?” cried the boy. “Why, that ain’t nothing to be ashamed of.
What stuff! Why, that’s something to be proud of, specially in our
Rifles. In the other regiments we have got out here the lads are
proud of being in scarlet. Let ’em. But I know better. There isn’t
one of them who wouldn’t be proud to be in our dark-green,
and to shoulder a rifle. Besides, we have got our bit of scarlet on
the collar and cuffs, and that’s quite enough. Why, you are
laughing at me! You couldn’t be ashamed of being in our
regiment. I know what it was—you ran away from home?”

“It was no longer home to me, Punch.”

“Why, didn’t you live there?”

“Yes; but it didn’t seem like home any longer. It was like this,
Punch. My father and mother had died.”

“Oh,” said the boy softly, “that’s bad. Very good uns,

waren’t they?” Pen bowed his head.

“Then it waren’t your home any

longer?” “Yes and no, Punch,” said the

lad gravely.

“There you go again! Don’t aggravate a fellow when he is sick

and weak. I ain’t a scholar like you, and when you puts it into me
with your ‘yes and no’ it makes my head ache. It can’t be yes and
no too.”

“Well, Punch,” said Pen, smiling, “it was mine by rights, but I
was under age.”

“What’s under age?”

“Not twenty-one.”
“Of course not. You told me months ago that you was only
eighteen.
Anybody could see that, because you ain’t got no whiskers. But
what has that got to do with it?”

“Well, I don’t see why I should tell you all this, Punch, for it’s
all about law.”

“But I want to know,” said the boy, “because it’s all about you.”

“Well, it’s like this: my father left my uncle to be executor and my

trustee.”

“Oh, I say, whatcher talking about? You said your father was a
good un, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“Well, then, he couldn’t have left your uncle to be your

executioner when you hadn’t done nothing.”

“Executor, Punch,” said the lad,

laughing. “Well, that’s what I said,

didn’t I?”

“No; that’s a very different thing. An executor is one who executes.”

“Well, I know that. Hangs people who ain’t soldiers, and shoots
them as is. Court-martial, you know.”

“Punch, you are getting in a muddle.”

“Glad of it,” said the boy, “for I thought it was, and I don’t like
to hear you talk like that.”

“Then let’s put it right. An executor is one who executes the

commands of a person who is dead.”

“Oh, I see,” said the boy. “Dead without being executed.”

“Look here, Punch,” said Pen, laughing, “you had better be still
and listen, and I will try and make it plain to you. My uncle was
my father’s executor, who had to see that the property he left
was rightfully distributed.”
“Oh, I see,” said Punch.

“And my father made him my trustee, to take charge of the

money that was to be mine when I became twenty-one.”

“All right; go on. I am getting it now.”

“Then he had to see to my education, and advise me till I grew up.”

“Well, that was all right, only if I had been your old man, seeing
what a chap you are, I shouldn’t have called in no uncle. I should
have said, ‘Young Penton Gray has got his head screwed on
proper, and he will do what’s right.’ I suppose, then, your uncle
didn’t.”

“I thought not, Punch.”

“Then, of course, he didn’t. What did he do,

then?” “Made me leave school,” said Pen.

“Oh, well, that don’t sound very bad. Made you leave school?
Well, I never was at school but once, but I’d have given anything
to be made to come away.”

“Ah, perhaps you would, Punch. But then there are schools and
schools.”

“Well, I know that,” said the boy irritably; “but don’t tease a
fellow, it makes me so wild now I’m all weak like.”

“Well, then, let’s say no more about

it.” “What! Leave off telling of me?”

“Yes, while you are irritable.”

“I ain’t irritable; not a bit. It’s only that I want to

know.” “Very well, then, Punch; I will cut it

short.”

“No, you don’t, so come now! You promised to tell me all about it,
so play fair.”
“Very well, then, you must listen patiently.”

“That’s what I’m a-doing of, only you will keep talking in riddles
like about your executioners and trustees. I want you to tell me
just in plain English.”

“Very well, then, Punch. I was at a military school, and I didn’t

want to be fetched away.”

“Oh, I see,” cried the boy. “You mean one of them big schools
where they makes young officers?”

“Yes.”

“Like Woolwich and

Addiscombe?” “Yes.”

“You were going to be a soldier, then—I mean, an

officer?” “An officer is a soldier, Punch.”

“Of course he is. Oh, well, I don’t wonder you didn’t want to be
fetched away. Learning to be an officer, eh? That’s fine. Didn’t
your uncle want you to be a soldier, then?”

“No. He wanted me to go as a private pupil with a lawyer.”

“What, and get to be a lawyer?” cried the boy excitedly. “Oh, I

say, you weren’t going to stand that?”

“No, Punch. Perhaps I should have obeyed him, only I knew that it
had always been my father’s wish that I should go into the army,
and he had left the money for my education and to buy a
commission when I left the military school.”

“Here, I know,” cried the boy excitedly; “you needn’t tell me no

more. I heard a story once about a wicked uncle. I know—your
one bought the commission and kept it for himself.”
“No, Punch; that wouldn’t work out right. When I begged him
to let me stay at the military school he mocked at me, and
laughed, and said that my poor father must have been mad to
think of throwing away money like that; and over and over again
he insisted that I should go on with my studies of the law, and
give up all notion of wearing a red coat, for he could see that
that was all I thought about.”

“Well?” said the boy.

“Well, Punch?”

“And then you punched his head, and ran away from

home.” “No, I did not.”

“Then you ought to have done. I would if anybody said my

poor father was mad; and, besides, your uncle must have been a
bad un to want to make you a lawyer. I suppose he was a lawyer
too.”

“Yes.”

“There, if I didn’t think so! But he must have been a bad un. Said
you wanted to be a soldier so as to wear the uniform? Well, if you
did want to, that’s only nat’ral. A soldier’s always proud of his
uniform. I heard our colonel say that it was the king’s livery and
something to be proud on. I am proud of mine, even if it has
got a bit raggy-taggy with sleeping out in it in all sorts of
weather, and rooshing through bushes and mud, and crossing
streams. But soldiers don’t think of that sort of thing, and we
shall all have new things served out by-and-by. Well, go on.”

“Oh, that’s about all, Punch.”

“You get on. I know better. Tain’t half all. I want you to come to
the cutting off and taking the shilling.”

“Oh, you want to hear that?”

“Why, of course I do. Why, it’s all the juicy part. Don’t hang fire.
Let’s have it with a rush now. Fix bayonets, and at them!”
“Why, Punch,” said Pen, laughing, “don’t you tell me again that
you are not getting better!”

“I waren’t going to now. This warms a fellow up a bit. I say, your

uncle is a bad un, and no mistake. There, forward!”

“But I have nearly told all, Punch. Life got so miserable at

home, and I was so sick of the law, that I led such a life with
my uncle through begging him to let me go back to the school,
that he, one day—”

“Well, whatcher stopping for?” cried the boy, whose cheeks were
flushed and eyes sparkling with excitement.

“I don’t like talking about it,” replied Pen. “I suppose I was wrong,
for my father had left all the management of my affairs in his
brother-in-law’s hands.”

“Why, you said your uncle’s hands just now!”

“Yes, Punch; in my mother’s brother’s hands, so he was

my uncle.” “Well, go on.”

“And I had been begging him to alter his

plans.” “Yes, and let you go back to the

school?”

“And I suppose he was tired out with what he called my

obstinacy, and he told me that if ever I dared to mention the army
again he would give me a sound flogging.”

“And you up and said you would like to catch him at it?” cried
Punch excitedly. “No, Punch; but I lost my temper.”

“Enough to make you! Then you knocked him down?”

“No, Punch, but I told him he was forgetting the commands my

father had given him, and that I would never go to the lawyer’s
office again.”

“Well, and what then?”

“Then, Punch? Oh, I don’t like to talk about it. It makes me
feel hot all over even to think.”

“Of course it does. It makes me hot too; but then, you see, I’m
weak. But do go on. What happened then?”

“He knocked me down,” said the lad hoarsely.

“Oh!” cried the boy, trying to spring up from his rough couch, but
sinking back with the great beads of perspiration standing upon
his brown forehead. “Don’t you tell me you stood that!”

“No, Punch; I couldn’t. That night I went right away from home,
just as I stood, made my way to London, and the next day I went
to King Street, Westminster, and saw where the recruiting
sergeants were marching up and down.”

“I know,” cried the boy, “with their canes under their arms and
their colours flying.”

“Yes, Punch, and I picked out the one in the new regiment, the
—th Rifles.”

“Yes,” cried Punch, “the Rifle green with the red collars and cuffs.”

Pen, half-excited by his recollections, half-amused at the boy’s

intense interest, nodded again.

“And took the king’s shilling,” cried Punch; “and I know, but I want
you to tell me—you joined ours just to show that uncle that you
wanted to serve the king, and not for the sake of the scarlet
coat.”

“Yes, Punch, that was why; and that’s all.”

 Chapter Nine.

How to treat an Enemy.

“Well, but is that all?” said Punch.

“Yes, and now you are tired and had better have a nap, and by
the time you wake I will have some more milk for you.”

“Bother the old milk! I’m sick of it; and I don’t want to go to sleep.
I feel sometimes as if I had nearly slept my head off. A fellow
can’t be always sleeping. Now, look here; I tell you what you
have got to do some day. You must serve that uncle of yours
out.”

“Let him rest. You are tired and weak.”

“No, I ain’t. All that about you has done me good. I did not know
that you had had such a lot of trouble, sir.”

“Ah, what’s that, Punch!” cried Pen sharply. “Don’t you say ‘sir’ to
me again!”

“Shall if I like. Ain’t you a gentleman?”

“No, sir. Only Private Penton Gray, of the —th

Rifles.” “Well, you are a-saying ‘sir’ to me.”

“Yes, but I don’t mean it as you do. While I am in the regiment

we are equals.”

“Oh yes, I like that!” said the boy with a faint laugh. “Wish we
was. Only Private Penton Gray of the —th! Well, ain’t that being a
gentleman? Don’t our chaps all carry rifles? They are not like the
line regiments with their common Brown Besses. Sharpshooters,
that’s what we are. But they didn’t shoot sharp enough the other
day, or else we shouldn’t be here. I have been thinking when I
have been lying half-asleep that there were so many Frenchies
that they got our lads between two fires and shot ’em all
down.”

“I hope not, Punch. What makes you think that?”

“Because if they had been all right they would have been after
us before now to cut us out, and—and—I say, my head’s
beginning to swim again.”

“Exactly, you are tired out and must go to sleep

again.” “But I tell you I don’t—”

The poor boy stopped short, to gaze appealingly in his

companion’s eyes as if asking for help, and the help Pen gave was
to lay his hand gently on his eyelids and keep it there till he felt
that the sufferer had sunk into a deep sleep.

The next day the poor fellow had quite a serious relapse, and lay
looking so feeble that once more Pen in his alarm stood watching
and blaming himself for rousing the boy into such a state of
excitement that he seemed to have caused him serious harm.

But just as Punch seemed at the worst he brightened

up again. “Look here,” he said, “I ain’t bad. I know

what it is.”

“So do I,” replied Pen. “You have been trying your strength too
much.”

“Wrong!” cried the boy faintly. “It was you give me too much to
eat. You ought to have treated me like a doctor would, or as if
I was a prisoner, and given me dry bread.”

“Ah!” sighed Pen. “But where was the bread to come from?”

“Jusso,” said Punch, with a faint little laugh; “and you can’t make
bread without flour, can you? But don’t you think I’m going to die,
because I am ever so much better to-day, and shall be all right
soon. Now, go on talking to me again about your uncle.”

“No,” said Pen, “you have heard too much of my troubles already.”
“Oh no, I ain’t. I want to hear you talk

about it.” “Then you will have to wait,

Punch.”

“All right, then. I shall lie and think till my head begins to go
round and round, and I shall go on thinking about myself till I
get all miserable and go backwards. You don’t want that, do
you?”

“You know I don’t.”

“Very well, then, let’s have some more uncle. It’s like doctor’s
stuff to me. I’ve been thinking that you might wait a bit, and then
go and see that lawyer chap and punch his head, only that would
be such a common sort of way. It would be all right if it was me,
but it wouldn’t do for you. This would be better. I have thought it
out.”

“Yes, you think too much, Punch,” said Pen, laying his hand upon
his companion’s forehead.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” cried the boy pettishly. “It’s nice
and cool now.”

“Yes, it is better now. That last sleep did you

good.” “Not it, for I was thinking all the

time.”

“Nonsense! You were fast asleep.”

“Yesterday,” said the boy; “but I was only shamming to-day, so

that I could think, and I have been thinking that this would do.
You must wait till we have whopped the French and gone back
to England, and got our new uniforms served out, and burnt all
our rags. Then we must go and see your uncle, and—”

“That’ll do, Punch. I want to see to your wound now.”

“What for? It’s going on all right. Here, whatcher doing of? You
ain’t going to cut up that other sleeve of your shirt, are you?”
“Yes; it is quite time that you had a fresh bandage.”
“Ah, that’s because you keep getting it into your head that I’m
worse and that I’m going to die; and it’s all wrong, for I am going
to be all right. The Frenchies thought they’d done for me; but I
won’t die, out of spite. I am going to get strong again, and as
soon as the colonel lets me carry a rifle I will let some of them
have it, and— Oh, very well; if you must do it, I suppose I must lie
still; only get it over. But—ya! I don’t mean to die. What’s the
good of it, when there’s so much for us to do in walloping the
French? But when we do get back to the regiment you see how I
will stick up for you, and what a lot I will make the chaps think of
you!”

“Will you keep your tongue quiet, Punch?”

“No, I sha’n’t,” said the boy with a mocking laugh. “There, you
needn’t tie that so tight so as to make it hurt me, because I shall
go on talking all the same—worse. You always begin to shy and
kick out like one of those old mules when I begin talking to you
like this. You hates to hear the truth. I shall tell the chaps every
blessed thing.”

But, all the same, Punch lay perfectly still now until the dressing
of his wound was at an end; and then very faintly, almost in a
whisper, he said, “Yes; our chaps never knew what a good chap
—”

“Ah! Asleep again!” said Pen, with a sigh of relief. “There must be
slight delirium, and I suppose I shall be doing no good by
trying to stop him. Poor fellow! He doesn’t know how he hurts me
when he goes wandering on like this. I wish I could think out
some way of getting a change of food. Plenty of milk, plenty of
fish. I have been as far as I dared in every direction, but there
isn’t a trace of a cottage. I don’t want much—only one of those
black-bread cakes now and then. Any one would have thought
that the people in a country like this would have kept plenty of
fowls. Perhaps they do where there are any cottages. Ah, there’s
no shamming now. He’s fast enough asleep, and perhaps when he
awakes he will be more himself.”

But poor Punch’s sleep only lasted about half an hour, and then
he woke up with his eyes glittering and with a strangely eager
look in his countenance, as he stretched out the one hand that he
could use.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s it. I know what you will have to do. Go to
that uncle
of yours—”

“Punch, lad,” cried Pen, laying his hand softly upon the one
that had closed upon his wrist, “don’t talk now.”

“I won’t much, only it stops my head from going round. I just want
to say
—”

“Yes, I know; but I have been watching a deal while you

slept.” “What for?” cried the boy.

“To make sure that the enemy did not surprise us.”

“Ah, you are a good chap,” said the boy, pressing his wrist.

“And I am very tired, and when you talk my head begins to go

round too.”

“Does it? Well, then, I won’t say much; only I have got this into
my head, and something seems to make me tell you.”

“Leave it till to-morrow morning, then.”

“No; it must come now, for fear I should forget it. What you
have to do is to go to your uncle like an officer and a gentleman
—”

“Punch, Punch!”

“All right; I have just done. Pistols like an officer—same as they

uses when they fights duels. Then you walks straight up to him,
with your head in the air, and you says to him, ‘You don’t desarve
it, sir, but I won’t take any dirty advantage of you; so there’s
the pistols,’ you says. ‘Which will you choose? For we are going
to settle this little affair.’ Then I’ll tell you how it is. Old Pat Reilly
—who was a corporal once, before he was put back into the
ranks—I heerd him telling our chaps over their pipes how he
went with the doctor of the regiment he was in to carry his
tools to mend the one of them who was hurt. He called it—he was
an Irishman, you know—a jool; and he said when you fight a
jool, and marches so many paces, and somebody—not the
doctor, but what they calls the second—only I think Pat made a
mistake, because there can’t be two
seconds; one of them must be a first or a

third—” “There, Punch, tell me the rest to-

morrow.”

“No,” said the boy obstinately; but his voice was growing weaker.
“I have just done, and I shall be better then, for what I wanted to
say will have left off worrying me. Let’s see what it was. Oh, I
know. You stands opposite to your uncle, turns sideways, raises
your pistol, takes a good aim at him, and shoots him dead. Now
then, what do you say to that?”

“That I don’t want to shoot him dead,

Punch.” “You don’t?”

“No.”

“Why, isn’t he your

enemy?” “I don’t know.”

“Then I suppose that won’t

do.” “I’m afraid not, Punch.”

“Then you must wait a little longer till you get promoted for
bravery in the field. You will be Captain Gray then, and then you
can go to him, and look him full in the face, and smile at him as if
you felt that he was no better than a worm, and ask him what he
thinks of that.”

“What! Of my captain’s uniform, Punch?”

“No, I mean you smiling down at him as if he wasn’t worth your

notice.” “Ah, that sounds better, Punch.”

“Then, you think that will

do?” “Yes.”

“Then, now I will go to sleep.”