e important thing just now is to find out precisely what is the
matter with you; so have the goodness to answer my questions as clearly
as possible, will ye?"
And while Stukely is closely questioning his patient the opportunity may
be taken to explain, in a very few words, how the two friends came to
find themselves where they were. As has already been stated, they were
fighting among the party who were defending the rear during the retreat
of the English back along the street by which they had come, when Dick
was felled to the ground by a great stone hurled from the top story of
one of the houses opposite which they were at the moment engaged.
Stukely, who was fighting behind him, heard the crash of the stone on
Dick's head, saw the lad reel and fall, and instantly stooped to raise
him to his feet again. But Dick Chichester was no light weight for a
man like Stukely to lift unaided, and before it could be done the whole
fight seemed to sweep right over them. Stukely was knocked down and
trodden under foot, men locked together in the grip of deadly strife
reeled and staggered and stumbled over him, and finally he received a
kick in the temple which so nearly robbed him of his senses that he was
only very vaguely conscious of what was happening during the next minute
or two. The next thing of which he was fully aware being that he was
being held by the shoulders and dragged along over uneven ground, then
he became suddenly conscious of being inside a building, and of hearing
a door closed and barred; and, finally, of finding himself sitting upon
the floor of the room where Dick and he now were, with the old lady
supporting his head on her knee while a young woman endeavoured to pour
_aguardiente_ down his throat. Then he fully recovered his senses, to
find, to his great joy, that Dick also had been rescued, and was then
lying senseless on a couch in the same room. Then, somehow, the young
woman had disappeared, and rising to his feet, he had devoted himself to
the task of wooing back Dick Chichester's senses. This, however, had
proved a far more difficult task than he had at first anticipated; and
it was not until the golden quality of the light streaming in through
the closed jalousies proclaimed the near approach of sunset that Dick
manifested any indication of returning consciousness, with the result
already recorded. And now a protracted and careful examination of the
wound, coupled with much questioning of h
|