quiero vino!' said I again; 'give me vino!'
"'Nada, nada tengo!' he repeated.
"I had already drawn my bayonet.—I am ashamed, sir, to say, that we used to do that to terrify the poor wretches, and make them the sooner give us their liquor.—As I held him by the collar with one hand, I pointed the bayonet at his breast with the other, and I again cried, 'Vino!'
"'Vino no tengo—nino, nino es!'—and he spoke the words with such a look of truth and earnestness, that, had I not fancied I could trace through the folds of his cloak the very shape of a small wine skin, I should have believed him.
"'Lying rascal!' said I, 'so you won't give me the liquor? then the dry earth shall drink it!' and I struck the point of my bayonet deep into that which he was still hugging to his breast.
"Oh, sir! it was not wine that trickled down—it was blood, warm blood!—and a piteous wail went like a chill across my heart!—The poor Spaniard opened his cloak—he pointed to his wounded child—and his wild eye asked me plainer than words could have done,—'Monster! are you satisfied!'
"I was sobered in a moment. I fell upon my knees beside the infant, and I tried to staunch the blood. Yes, the poor fellow understood the truth: he saw, and he accepted my anguish—and we joined our efforts to save the little victim.—Oh! it was too late!
"The little boy had fastened his small clammy hands round a finger of each of us. He looked at us alternately; and seemed to ask, alike from his father and his murderer, that help which it was beyond the power of one of earth to give. The changes in the poor child's countenance showed that it had few minutes to live. Sometimes it lay so still I thought the last pang was over; when a slight convulsion would agitate its frame, and a momentary pressure of its little hands, would give the gasping father a short vain ray of hope.
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