that bit of hard, dry cheese, only I let it slip out of my
fingers and it bounced like a bit of wood under the bed. Well, whatcher
brought for us to eat?"

"Nothing, I am sorry to say."

"Well, but what are we going to do? We can't starve."

"I am afraid we can, Punch, if things are going on like this."

"But they ain't to go on like this. I won't lie here and starve. Nice
thing for a poor fellow tied up here so bad that he couldn't pick up a
bit of wittles again as had tumbled down, and you gone off roaming about
where you liked, leaving your poor wounded comrade to die! Oh, I do
call it a shame!" cried the lad piteously.

"Yes, it does seem a shame, Punch," said Pen gently; "but I can fetch
some water. Are you very thirsty?"

"Thirsty? Course I am! Burnt up! It has been like an oven here all
day."

Pen caught up the wooden _seau_ and hurried out through the wood, to
return in a few minutes with the vessel brimful of cold, clear water,
which he set down ready, and then after carefully raising the poor boy
into a sitting position he lifted the well-filled drinking-cup to his
lips and replenished it again twice before the poor fellow would give
up.

"Ah!" he sighed, "that's better! Which way did you go this time?"

"Out there to the west, where the sun goes down, Punch."

"Well, didn't you find no farmhouses nor cottages where they'd give you
a bit of something to eat?"

"Not one; only rough mountain-land, with a goat here and there."

"Well, why didn't you catch one, or drive your bayonet into it? If we
couldn't cook it we could have eaten it raw."

"I tried to, Punch, but the two or three I saw had been hunted by the
enemy till they were perfectly wild, and I never got near one."

"But you didn't see no enemy this time, did you?"

"Yes; they are dotted about everywhere, and I have been crawling about
all day through the woods so as not to be seen. It's worse there than
in any direction I have been this week. The French are holding the
country wherever I have been."

"Oh, I do call this a nice game," groaned the wounded boy. "Here, give
us another cup of water. It does fill one up, and I have been feeling
as hollow as a drum."

Pen handed him the cup once more, and Punch drank with as much avidity
as if it were his first.

"Yes," he sighed, "I do call it a nice game! I say, though, comrade,
don't you think if you'd waited till it was dark, and then tried, you
could have got throug