Read "The Smuggler Chief" by Gustave Aimard online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
General Soto-Mayor had been hurriedly raised by the volunteers, whom the report of the two pistol shots had attracted to his room, a surgeon attached to the reinforcing column was summoned, and hastened to dress the old gentleman's frightful wounds. The terrible pain which the scalping caused him, and the immense quantity of blood he had lost, had plunged him into a profound fainting fit, from which it seemed impossible for him to recover. Upwards of three hours passed before he gave any signs of life. At length a faint sigh issued from his oppressed chest: he made a slight movement, his eyes opened slightly, and he muttered in a low and broken voice --
"Something to drink."