’He won’t be on his legs again for six months,’ he told me, ’I’m going to take him on board the _Hector_ for the Fleet Surgeon to see.’ I was absolutely too weary just then to worry about anything, but I know that there were a lot of formalities to go through before he could be taken aboard, and that the Skipper and one of the San Fernando Englishmen bustled about and managed it all right. The Provisional Government would have done anything for us just then. I was jolly glad, because I owed a great deal more to little Navarro than I could repay. I don’t know when I had felt so tired, and though any number of our chaps were crowding round me wanting me to talk, and the townspeople were thronging against the Club railings to see me, I hardly noticed them, and just wanted something to drink and then go to sleep. I really couldn’t keep my eyes open. *CHAPTER IX* *Zorilla attacks* _Written by Sub-Lieutenant William Wilson, R.N._ I slept like a top for an hour, and woke up in a fright; I thought that little brute was trying to stab me, but it was only one of the local Englishmen, a man named Seymour, shaking me. ’I’ll be more careful next time,’ he said, smiling and rubbing his shoulder where I’d caught him ’one’ as he bent over me. ’You yelled as if you were being murdered.’ ’I thought I was,’ I said, waking up. He had just come back from Gerald, and had a message for me. Gerald wanted me to go out to him again. He was at a place called Marina, about eight miles along the coast-line, half-way to El Castellar, and was making it his headquarters for the night. ’You’ll see lots of fun if you go out there,’ Seymour told me, ’he has Zorilla’s army surrounded just above Alvarez’s farm, not two miles from Marina, and expects to collar the whole lot to-night or to-morrow morning. He’s done a great day’s work and has captured the last gun they have.’ He was sending his own buggy to Marina with Gerald’s bag, and offered me a lift. You may bet I jumped at the offer; there was just time for me to have a wash and some tea; along came the carriage with two jolly smart ponies in it; one of the Club servants brought down Gerald’s kit-bag—one of the last presents the mater had given him before he left home—in I jumped, and away those ponies flew, bumping the carriage along at a fine rate. There was no more going to sleep then—it was as much as I could do to hold on to my seat, and prevent myself being chucked out.