that it would scare his companion
again.

Punch remained silent and marched on, keeping step, till they were
getting very close to a tiny scrap of a smouldering fire; and then there
was a rush of feet as if about a couple of dozen goats had been
startled, to spring up and scatter away, with their horny hoofs
pattering amongst the stones; and at the same moment the two lads became
aware of the fact that after their habit the sturdy little animals had
been sleeping around a couple of fierce-looking, goatskin-clothed,
half-savage Spanish goat-herds, one of whom kicked at the fire, making
it burst into a temporary blaze which lit up their swarthy features and
flashed in their eyes, and, what was more startling still, on the blades
of the two long knives which they snatched from their belts.

"_Amigos, amigos_!" cried Pen, and he grounded arms, Punch following his
example.

"_Amigos! No, Franceses_," shouted one of the men, as the fire burnt up
more brightly; and he pointed at Pen's musket.

"_No_," cried Pen, "_Ingleses_." And laying down his piece near the
fire, he coolly seated himself and began to warm his hands. "Come on,
Punch," he said, "sit down; and give me your haversack."

The boy obeyed, and as the two men looked at them doubtingly Pen took
the haversack, held it out, thrust his hand within two or three times,
and shook his head before pointing to his lips and making signs as if he
wanted to eat.

"_El pano, agua_," he said.

The men turned to gaze into each other's eyes as if in doubt, and then
began slowly to thrust their long, sharp knives into their belts; and it
proved directly afterwards that Pen's pantomime had been sufficiently
good, for one of them strode away into the darkness, where the lads
could make out a sort of wind-shade of piled-up stones, from which he
returned directly afterwards with what proved to be a goatskin-bag,
which he carried to his companion, and then went off again, to return
from somewhere behind the stones, carrying a peculiar-looking earthen
jar, which proved to be filled with water.

Just then Punch drew the two muskets a little farther from the fire, and
to Pen's surprise took off his jacket and carefully covered their locks.

"Afraid of the damp," muttered Pen to himself; and then he smiled up in
the face of the fiercer-looking of the two goat-herds as the man placed
a cake of coarse-looking bread in his hands and afterwards turned out
from the bag a couple of la