“I would die of fright if I had to fight this fine fellow a month from to-day,” the little doctor chirped. “Look at that chest, _mi general_--and that flat abdomen. The man is in superb physical condition; it is the bump on the head that renders him unconscious--not loss of blood.”
As if to confirm this expert testimony Webster at that moment breathed long and deeply, screwed up his face and shook his head very slightly. Thereafter for several minutes he gave no further evidence of an active interest in life--seeing which Pacheco decided to take prompt advantage of his unconsciousness and probe the wounds in his arm and shoulder for the fragments of clothing which the bullets must have carried into them. After ten minutes of probing Pacheco announced that he was through and ready to bandage; whereupon John Stuart Webster said faintly but very distinctly, in English:
“I'm awfully glad you are, Doc'. It hurt like hell! Did you manage to get a bite on that fishing-trip?”
“Jack Webster, you scoundrel!” Ricardo yelled joyously, and he shook the patient with entire disregard of the latter's wounds. “Oh, man, I'm glad you're not dead.”
“Your sentiments appeal to me strongly, my friend. I'm--too--tired to look--at you. Who the devil--are you?”
Fell a silence, while Webster prepared for another speech. “Where am I?”
“One strong, decisive blow did the trick, old chap. We won pulled-up, and that forty-thousand-dollar bet of yours is safe. I'll cash the ticket for you tomorrow morning.”
“Damn the forty thousand. Where's my Croppy Boy?”
“My wild Irish blackthorn, Don Juan Cafetéro.”
“I hope, old man, he has ere now that which all brave Irishmen and true deserve--a harp with a crown. In life the Irish have the harp without the crown, you know.”
“He died hard, with the holes in front--and he died for you.”
Two big tears trickled slowly through Webster's closed lids and rolled across his pale cheek. “Poor, lost, lonesome, misunderstood wreck,” he murmured presently, “he was an extremist in all things. He used to sing those wonderfully poetic ballads of his people--I remember one that began: 'Green were the fields where my forefathers dwelt.' I think his heart was in Kerry--so we'll send him there. He's my dead, Ricardo; care for his body, because I'm--going to plant Don Juan with the--shamrocks. They didn't understand him here. He was an exile--so I'm going to send him--home.”