e handed it to Ned, whose
honest countenance had won her confidence. She then placed her
husband's head in her lap, and bent over him in silence, expressing her
grief neither in tears nor cries.

"Come, don't be cast down, Missus," said Ned, his kind heart moved by
her sorrow. "Better times may come, and your good man isn't going to
slip his cable, I hope. I say, mate, she don't understand my lingo," he
continued, turning to me; "just you tell her what I say. It'll cheer
her up a bit."

I saw that words could bring no comfort to the poor creature, but that
our attention might be more effectually employed in binding up Manco's
wounds. Telling Ned this, we set to work in as scientific a way as we
were able. Some of the Indians brought us water, and Nita, when she saw
what we were about, aroused herself to help us. We had scarcely
finished the operation, when a cry from Pedro called us to the
assistance of Don Gomez, who had likewise fainted from the pain of his
wound and loss of blood. My attention had, indeed, been so completely
occupied with my Indian friend, that I had forgotten that the Spaniard
had been hurt. Pedro was kneeling by his side, and supporting him with
a look of interest and anxiety, which I at first was at a loss to
understand.

"O come, my friend, come and help him, or he will die!" he exclaimed.

Ned, who had seen many a gun-shot wound, and had often assisted the
surgeons to doctor his shipmates, examined the Spaniard's hurts.

"It's a bad job, mate, I'm afraid," he observed, pointing to his side.
"The ball is in him somewhere, for there's the place it entered, and I
can find no hole where it could have got out again. I've been feeling
for it all round his back, but there's no sign of it. How he came on so
far as this without dropping, I don't know. It was his spirit kept him
up, I suppose."

Finding that we could do nothing else to relieve the unfortunate Don
Gomez, we washed and bound up his wound, and then laid him on a bed of
some straw and skins, which we found in the cavern. The same care had
been taken of Manco. The Indians, meantime, had lighted a fire in the
mouth of the cavern, and were seated round it in moody silence, brooding
over their defeat and the death of many of their comrades and friends.
We found some brandy among the stores, and after Don Gomez had swallowed
a little of it, which we gave him with some water, he revived, and
beckoned Pedro to him.

"You were