An Apache Princess - Charles King (readict books .TXT) 📗

title="[45]"> oppressed the occupant of the adjoining house. Just as the two had reached the rear of Wren's quarters, and were barely fifty steps from safety, the captain himself, issuing again from the doorway, suddenly appeared upon the scene, and in low, but imperative tone accosted them. "Who are you?" said he, bending eagerly, sternly over them. One quick look he gave, and, almost instantly recoiling, exclaimed "Mrs. Plume! I beg—" Then, as though with sudden recollection, "No, madam, I do not beg your pardon," and, turning on his heel, abruptly left them. Without a word, but with the arm of the maid supporting, the taller woman sped swiftly across the narrow intervening space and was lost again within the shadows of her husband's home.

Private Mullins, silent and probably unseen witness of this episode, slowly tossed his rifle from the port to the shoulder; shook his puzzled head; stared a moment at the dim figure of Captain Wren again in the starlit morning, nervously tramping up and down his narrow limit; then mechanically sauntered down the roadway, pondering much over what he had seen and heard during the brief period of his early morning watch. Reaching the south, the lower, end of his post, he turned again. He had but ten minutes left of his two-hour tramp. The second relief was due to start at 3.30, and should reach him at 3.35. He was wondering would the officer of the day "come nosin' round" within that time, asking him his orders, and was everything all right on his post? And had he observed anything unusual? There was Captain Wren, like a caged tiger, tramping up and down behind his quarters. At least he had been, for now he had disappeared. There were, or rather had been, the two ladies in long cloaks flitting in the shadows from the major's quarters to those of the invalid lieutenant. Mullins certainly did not wish to speak about them to any official visitor, whatever he might whisper later to Norah Shaughnessy, the saddler sergeant's daughter—Norah, who was nurse girl at the Trumans', and knew all the ins and outs of social life at Sandy—Norah, at whose window, under the north gable, he gazed with love in his eyes as he made his every round. He was a good soldier, was Mullins, but glad this night to get off post. Through the gap between the second and third quarters he saw the lights at the guard-house and could faintly see the black silhouette of armed men in front of them. The relief was forming sharp on time, and presently Corporal Donovan would be bringing Trooper Schultz, of "C" Troop, straight across the parade in search of him. The major so allowed his sentry on No. 5 to be relieved at night. Mullins thanked the saints with pious fervor that no more ladies would be like to flit across his vision, that night at least, when, dimly through the dusk, against the spangled northern sky, he sighted another figure crouching across the upper end of his post and making straight for the lighted entrance at the rear of the lieutenant's quarters. Someone else, then, had interest at Blakely's—someone coming stealthily from without. A minute later certain wakeful ears were startled by a moaning cry for aid.

Just what happened, and how it happened, within the minute, led to conflicting stories on the morrow. First man examined by Major Plume was Lieutenant Truman of the Infantry, who happened to be officer of the day. He had been over at Blakely's about midnight, he said; had found the patient sleeping under the influence of soothing medicine, and, after a whispered word with Todd, the hospital attendant, had tiptoed out again, encountering Downs, the lieutenant's striker, in the darkness on the rear porch. Downs said he was that excited he couldn't sleep at all, and Mr. Truman had come to the conclusion that Downs's excitement was due, in large part, to local influences totally disconnected with the affairs of the early evening. Downs was an Irishman who loved the "craytur," and had been known to resort to unconventional methods of getting it. At twelve o'clock, said Mr. Truman, the striker had obviously been priming. Now Plume's standing orders were that no liquor should be sold to Downs at the store and none to other soldiers except in "pony" glasses and for use on the spot. None could be carried away unconsumed. The only legitimate spirits, therefore, to which Downs could have access were those in Blakely's locked closet—spirits hitherto used only in the preservation of specimens, and though probably not much worse than the whisky sold at the store, disdainfully referred to by votaries as "Blakely's bug juice." Mr. Truman, therefore, demanded of Downs the possession of the lieutenant's keys, and, with aggrieved dignity of mien, Downs had referred him to the doctor, whose suspicions had been earlier aroused. Intending to visit his sentries after the change of guard at 1.30, Truman had thrown himself into a reclining chair in his little parlor, while Mrs. Truman and the little Trumans slumbered peacefully aloft. After reading an hour or so the lieutenant fell into a doze from which he awoke with a start. Mrs. Truman was bending over him. Mrs. Truman had been aroused by hearing voices in cautious, yet excited, colloquy in the shadows of Blakely's back porch. She felt sure that Downs was one and thought from the sound that he must be intoxicated, so Truman shuffled out to see, and somebody, bending double in the dusk, scurried away at his approach. He heard rather than saw. But there was Downs, at least, slinking back into the house, and him Truman halted and accosted. "Who was that with you?" he asked, and Downs thickly swore he hadn't seen a soul. But all the while Downs was clumsily stuffing something into a side pocket, and Truman, seizing his hand, dragged it forth into the light. It was one of the hospital six-ounce bottles, bearing a label indicative of glycerine lotion, but the color of the contained fluid belied the label. A sniff was sufficient. "Who gave you this whisky?" was the next demand, and Downs declared 'twas a hospital "messager" that brought it over, thinking the lieutenant might need it. Truman, filled with wrath, had dragged Downs into the dimly lighted room to the rear of that in which lay Lieutenant Blakely, and was there upbraiding and investigating when startled by the stifled cry that, rising suddenly on the night from the open mesa just without, had so alarmed so many in the garrison. Of what had led to it he had then no more idea than the dead.

Corporal Donovan, next examined, said he was marching Schultz over to relieve Mullins on No. 5, just after half-past three, and heading for the short cut between the quarters of Captains Wren and Cutler, which was about where No. 5 generally met the relief, when, just as they were halfway between the flagstaff and the row, Schultz began to limp and said there must be a pebble in his boot. So they halted. Schultz kicked off his boot and shook it upside down, and, while he was tugging at it again, they both heard a sort of gurgling, gasping cry out on the mesa. Of course Donovan started and ran that way, leaving Schultz to follow, and, just back of Captain Westervelt's, the third house from the northward end, he almost collided with Lieutenant Truman, officer of the day, who ordered him to run for Dr. Graham and fetch him up to Lieutenant Blakely's quick. So of what had taken place he, too, was ignorant until later.

It was the hospital attendant, Todd, whose story came next and brought Plume to his feet with consternation in his eyes. Todd said he had been sitting at the lieutenant's bedside when, somewhere about three o'clock, he had to go out and tell Downs to make less noise. Downs was completely upset by the catastrophe to his officer and, somehow, had got a few comforting drinks stowed away, and these had started him to singing some confounded Irish keen that grated on Todd's nerves. He was afraid it would disturb the patient and he was about to go out and remonstrate when the singing stopped and presently he heard Downs's voice in excited conversation. Then a woman's voice in low, urgent, persuasive whisper became faintly audible, and this surprised Todd beyond expression. He had thought to go and take a look and see who it could be, when there was a sudden swish of skirts and scurry of feet, and then Mr. Truman's voice was heard. Then there was some kind of sharp talk from the lieutenant to Downs, and then, in a sort of a lull, there came that uncanny cry out on the mesa, and, stopping only long enough to see that the lieutenant was not roused or disturbed, Todd hastened forth. One or two dim figures, dark and shadowy, were just visible on the eastward mesa, barely ten paces away, and thither the attendant ran. Downs, lurching heavily, was just ahead of him. Together they came upon a little group. Somebody went running southward—Lieutenant Truman, as Todd learned later—hurrying for the doctor. A soldier equipped as a sentry lay moaning on the sand, clasping a bloody hand to his side, and over him, stern, silent, but agitated, bent Captain Wren.

CHAPTER V THE CAPTAIN'S DEFIANCE