For Treasure Bound | Page 5

in abundance, and everything else ready that her womanly sympathy could suggest.
CHAPTER TWO.
THE SECRET.
The doctor remained with the sick man more than half an hour; and when I heard his footstep descending the staircase I went out and met him.
"The poor fellow is sinking rapidly," said he, in reply to my inquiries; "he has received severe internal injuries, and is bleeding to death inwardly. I can do nothing, absolutely nothing for him. Keep him quiet, and humour him as much as you can; excitement of any kind will only hasten his dissolution." I cheerfully promised to do all I could for the dying man; and the doctor took his leave, promising to call again the last thing in the evening.
As soon as the doctor was out of the house I went upstairs and into the sick-room, where I found the patient in bed, and Bob, with his boots off, gliding as quietly about the room as a trained hospital nurse, doing all he could to contribute to the comfort of his charge.
The opening of the door attracted the sick man's attention, and he feebly turned his head in my direction. As soon as he recognised me, he beckoned me to approach; and I drew a chair to the side of the bed, asking him how he felt.
"Like one whose moments are numbered," replied he in perfectly pure English, but with a sonorous ring in the articulation of the words, which betrayed the fact that he was not speaking in his mother tongue. "Senor," he continued, "I am dying; the doctor has candidly told me so, though I needed no such assurance from him. The dreadful pangs which shoot through my tortured frame are such as no man could long endure and live. I am a true Catholic, senor, and I would fain see a priest, or some good man of my own creed, that I may confess, and clear my guilty soul from the stains which a life of sinful indulgence and contempt of Heaven's laws has polluted it with. I know there are many of my faith in England; it may be that there are some in this place. Know you of any such?"
I replied that there certainly was a Catholic church in the town, but it was situated at some distance from the house in which he now lay; consequently it would perhaps be an hour before the priest could be found and brought to him; "but," added I, "I will send for him forthwith, and until he arrive I will sit here and keep you company."
So saying, I called Bob on one side, and directed him to proceed, as quickly as possible, into town, and bring the Reverend Father without a moment's delay to the house.
As soon as Bob had departed, I resumed my seat by the bedside. Extending his burning hand towards me, he clasped mine, and endeavoured to raise it to his lips. "Senor," said he, "since it is the will of God that I am to die, I can but bow to that will in submission; but I would I could have been spared for a few years to testify my gratitude to you for your brave and noble efforts in behalf of my crew and myself--my poor people, my poor people," he sobbed--"all, all lost!"
He was silent for nearly five minutes; and I took advantage of the opportunity to explain to him that what I had done was no more than any other Englishman would do if he had the power, under similar circumstances; that such conduct was thought nothing of among our nation; being regarded as simply a duty which each man owed to every other, in like circumstances of distress with his own.
"I know--I know," replied he, "the English are as generous as they are brave; but still I would I had it in my power to express my thanks otherwise than in words. But I am alone in the world which I am so soon to leave. Not one have I of my own name or blood to whom I can bequeath my debt of gratitude; and when my ship went to pieces to-day (she was my own property, senor), I became a beggar. I have not so much property left as will pay the expenses of my burial; and here I lie, indebted to a stranger, and that stranger a foreigner, for the shelter which covers my dying head, as I soon shall be for the coffin and the grave which await my lifeless clay."
I was beginning to say something, with the intention of diverting his mind from so painful a train of thought, when he interrupted me eagerly.
"And yet," continued he, "poor as I am, it is in my power to make you rich--ay, beyond the utmost scope