Page:Stories by Foreign Authors (Spanish).djvu/206

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202
BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS.

in line, with its band and all! 'What may this be for?' I said to myself. The sentry on guard was as mute and as motionless as a statue, so that it is n't because there are Moors in sight. And why is this regiment drawn up and not the others? This was beginning to excite my curiosity. I drew near. The band was playing away when the colonel, taking his place in front of the regiment, commanded silence, and said in a loud voice, so that all might hear him:

"'The commander-in-chief has learned with great satisfaction that on the afternoon of the 24th of November, a soldier of the King's regiment, which I have the honor to command, seeing his companion and friend wounded and in the hands of the Moors, and animated by the noblest sentiments, fixed his bayonet, and throwing himself heroically upon the Moors, and striking down those who attempted to stop him, seized his wounded friend, threw him over his shoulder, more regardful of his friend's life than of his own, and, snatching him from certain death, carried him back to the ranks; and desiring to recompense, in view of the whole regiment, the soldier who, in so admirable a manner, unites in himself the gallantry of the soldier and the piety of the Christian, transmits to him this gold medal, which the Cadiz Athenæum has provided and caused to be engraved, with the object of making it an honorable reward for an act of surpassing merit,