CHILDREN'S COLUMN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10969, 25 January 1899, Page 3

CHILDREN'S COLUMN.

CONCEALED WITHIN A PIGSKIN.

EXCITING LITTLE AFFAIR IN SPAIN.

"Hadn't we better be off now The rain's stopped, and never did see anything so funny us these great bladder businesses, Eric." Stan Farway nodded, as lie spoke, at the heap of brown pigskins on one side of the large smoke-blackened mora. They use such article, instead of barrels for their wine in many parts of Spain, and very droll they do look, with the four leg stumps and no head. Kric Moreno went close to the window. " IIullo!" he exclaimed. " Some fellows with gu.is are coming up the hill. This is a bother, with my ankle and all." He hastily moved to the oilier side of the room, whence, from a second little window, there was a view of the Mejar forest, with blue mountains beyond. But Eric wasn't interested in the view. His eyes fastened with real honor upon the armed men slowly ascending this slope also. " Stan," ho said, turning and looking about him, "we're trapped. What shall we do? They're C'arlists, as sure as anything, and we can't get away without being seen." The house where they had taken refuge had but two rooms, of which they were in the larger. The chimney was the most obvious place of concealment, but also it was the most futile. Though very wide at the base, it narrowed at the top, so that no boy could hope to squeeze out of it. There was, besides, a dirty bed, a plate shelf, a little pile of herb fuel, a box with meal in it, and a rack hanging horizontally from the rafters, with two or three sides of bacon set on it. The two boys quickly studied their chances. Then Eric hit on an idea. " Bob, if you'll get into one of those skins ever so quickly, I'll fix you up. I know where I'll go," and ho nodded at the bacon-rack. "Couldn't I as well?" asked Bob, making a face at the pig shapes. " There's not room, old chap. You must do it." " Oh, if I must. But I'll not be stitched up." This was a frown at the gut, thread, and needle which stood handy on the! windowsill. "Of course not, old chap. Come along." So saying, Eric picked out one of the biggest of the shapes, slit it at the haunches, and gave it to Bob, who, with an anxious face, yet something of a grin as well, pulled it on much as if it were a sweater. His lament about its unsavouriness was lost upon Eric. The skin came to Bob's feet— had belonged to a very big sow, indeed. Thus it was easy to guide him into the heap, and with a whispered injunction from the ankles not to move until he, Eric, gave him the word, be lay down, and was, more or less, covered by a dozen other tightblown shapes. This done Eric took a brisk peep from both windows. It behoved him to make haste. Putting two chairs together he managed to climb his parch. Then, with his feet, lie overturned the chairs, and afterwards he huddled up on the top of the bacon, with his face very near to the dirty rafters. So far, moderately well; but when Eric had thus settled himself he had time to bethink himself of the particularly tiresome plight in which he and his friend really we. How long, for instance, might poor Stan have to stay thus half-suffocated? and could he keep it up long enough. The first troop of men entered the house while Eric was thus dismally pondering. There were five of them, and their language was of a kind to make poor Eric feel more uncomfortable still. " But for that accursed Alcalde Moreno," one of them exclaimed, amid the grumbling of the rest," we should have done very well in San Lugo." " Caramba! yes," said another; " and to think how canting and ply he was in the old days. It's a wonder no one put a bullet in his large stomach." " His English wife wants serving the same way," observed a third. "And the cub, his son," another man added. Then they all turned to receive the second contingent of rebels, among whom was the master of this precious house of pigskins. "A pretty nice mess, I must say!" reflected poor Eric. It was his father they referred to as Alcalde Moreno (alcalde signifying magistrate), and their words only confirmed him in his fears about his and Stan's fate if they were caught. There was now a great shuffling about in the room. The house tenant proposed to feed all the eleven men; a fire was lit, bread was produced from a sack, and bacon was mentioned. "I'm lost!" thought Eric, when be heard the word " bacon."

But ill spite of his danger, as the man climbed up and fumbled at the strongsmelling pig meat, Eric kept his wits. It had ■ occurred to him that there was just a chance, and he made the very most of it. Drawing himself to the side of the bacon

farthest from the man, who was well below him, he managed to hang on to the rafter with feet and hands while the meat was being pulled from under him. Then he just softly lowered himself on to the other slab of bacon. Softly though he managed it, however, he made a little noise. " What's that?" exclaimed one of the men. But the answer was satisfactory. " I wager it's that sly cat of mine on the roof. She spends her days rabbiting in the forest, and in the nights she finds mice here." This from the house tenant. Now the smell of frying bacon filled the populous little room. It was rather appetising to Eric, and the perfume of wine from a uigskin brought out of the cellar was also enlivening. But he was much more concerned about the iength of time these fellows would thus pass feeding and drinking. His own position was not exactly easy; but poor Stan must be having a terribly hot time of it. Once he contrived to get an eye over the side of the bacon. The men were sitting on the ground fo.' the most part. The backs of four of them made a barrier against the pigskins, and thus peeping, to his alarm, lie felt sure he saw the whole upper heap of the brown skins heave. After tla., he just lay and expected the worst at any time It was hard lines for poor Stan thus to come to Spain for a summer holiday (he and Stan were at- the same school in Eastbourne) only to be shot or knifed, and he, Eric, also felt tha* the like fate would bo hard lines for him. But how was it going to be avoided? Matters were still thus, however, when the night began to fall and there was a movement among the men. Eric heard the arrangements made by one who seemed to be in authority. " You six will take the Cataiina side of San Lugo and await orders by the hermitage up to nine o'clock to-morrow; and I, Antonio and these three will be off to the Pov.da Olr.issa in San Lugo." Thanks were tendered to the house tenant and " good-nights" exchanged. Eric peeped afresh and saw that only two men were left. These two began to whisper, and were still whispering when a sudden noise made Eric almost roll from his perch. " Saint Isidor." shrieked one of the men, while they both fell back towards the door. It was all due to poor Stan, who could bear it no more. He had bitten a little hole in the pigskin to breathe through, and now lie had groped his way into the middle of the room, pigskin and all. "That finishes us," sighed Etpc, as ha dropped back. 11. The fear that at the outset had possessed the two men when they saw the animated pigskin speedily left them. Stan's commonplace pair of feet spoilt the illusion. They gripped him, tore him roughly out of his very tight jacket, and glared at his hot, streaming red face. Eric was watching all again now, ready also to slip down to Stan's help the moment the chance offered. But Stan calmly suggested that he shouldn't be rashly precipitate. He addressed liimself to the two ruffians in English, as follows — "I'm awfully sorry, old man, but I couldn't stand the beastly thing any long;r. Don't be in a hurry to share the mess with mc. 1' fancy we'll get through all right somehow, especially as there are only two of them." " What on earth's he crowing," the one who had Stan by tie arm asked of his comrade, the tenant of the house. They both seemed mystified, the more as Stan's blue eyes and curly hair were such strong tokens'of Ijis foreign extraction. Are there any more of you there?" said the house tenant. Ho tumbled the skins this way and that. "You've no idea how hot I am!" said Stan to his captor. "I only wish that I had a revolver, old man." Eric could hardly restrain himself. But he watched—how he did watch the scene below him ! And to his joy his eye caught Stan's, when this astute and decidedly cool youth glanced towards the ceiling in a casual manner, with a fine imitation of a shoulder-shrug. The two men now surveyed him, and discussed the situation, l'o their enquiries who lie was and whence he had come, he made no intelligible replies, and they agreed that he was no Spaniard. " The question is, • What shall we do with him: " said the one man. "He carries a watch. That Till be useful. A few inches of steel will wind him up," was the other's terrible reply. Here Stan got in a word with profuse gesticulations. " I say, you know, you can hear what the beggars are plotting. If they do try and damage me, or even rob me, I'm afraid I shall let out at them, and chance it all. All the same, old man, don't put yourself in a hole for my sake." We'll sea about that," said Eric to himself. He had already got out his knife. An idea had come to him. The two men were very nicely under the bacon rack, which was of an exceedingly stout construction, although hung to the rafters merely by four blackened bits of cord. Eric would have given all his accumulated savings in the bank of Spain to be able safely to hint to Stan to look out for his own head. "Now, then, hands off, I tell you," cried Stan suddenly, as he struggled ™th the man who was grabbing at his pocket. Hearing this, with one more glance, Eric gashed at the cords; first one at one end, then one at the opposite side's other end. This done, he realised that he was in a bit of a hole. But he took the risk now, gashed the other at the end, and, clinging to the rafter with one hand as the rack fell endways, quickly severed the remaining cord, afterwards dropping with the rack itself, with Stan's " Bravo" in his ears. When he stumbled up, Eric saw what he had done. The first ruffian had been stunned by the swing of the rack, which had struck him hard on the temple, and the other was struggling beneath the ruck, upon which Stan had very promptly thrown himself. "Tie him to it, old man, sharp!" Stan almost shrieked, as he pressed on the wooden frame. And this, between them, is what they did, in spite of the house tenant's objections. Happily, he, too, was considerably dazed by the blow he had received. Afterwards they made off in the darkness, and wore lucky to find their way to San Lugo without further disagreeable adventures. The Carlists themselves were both surprised and annoyed that night and the following morning to have their little plans seriously interfered with by the apparition of a bodv of soldiers, first at the Posado Chassa and later at the Cat-arina hermitage. The San Lugo alcalde owed them that much, however, if only for the anxiety which they had given him land Senora Moreno in the matter of Eric and Stan.— Chums."