Bang went the ready rifle with sharp, sullen roar that woke the echoes across the valley. Bang again, as Leary sent a second shot after the first. Then, as the captain came panting to the spot, they followed up the road. No sign of the runner. Attracted by the shots, the sergeant of the guard and one or two men, lantern-bearing, came running to the scene. Excitedly they searched up and down the road in mingled hope and dread of finding the body of the marauder, or some clue or trace.
Nothing! Whoever he was, the fleet runner had vanished and made good his escape.
"Who could it have been, sir?" asked the sergeant of the officer of the day. "Surely none of the men ever come round this way."
"I don"t know, sergeant; I don"t know. Just take your lamp and see if there is anything visible down there among the rocks. He may have been hit and leaped the wall.--Do you think you hit him, Leary?"
"I can"t say, sor. He came by me like a flash. I had just a second"s look at him, and--Sure I niver saw such runnin"."
"Could you see his face?" asked Chester, in a low tone, as the other men moved away to search the rocks.
"Not his face, sor. "Twas too dark."
"Was there--did he look like anybody you knew, or had seen?--anybody in the command?"
"Well, sor, not among the men, that is. There"s none so tall and slim both, and so light. Sure he must "a" worn gums, sor. You couldn"t hear the whisper of a footfall."
"But whom did he _seem_ to resemble?"
"Well, if the captain will forgive me, sor, it"s unwillin" I am to say the worrd, but there"s no one that tall and light and slim here, sor, but Loot"nant Jerrold. Sure it couldn"t be him, sor."
"Leary, will you promise me something on your word as a man?"
"I will, sor."
"Say not one word of this matter to any one, except I tell you, or you have to, before a court."
"I promise, sor."
"And I believe you. Tell the sergeant I will soon be back."
With that he turned and walked down the road until once more he came to the plank crossing and the pa.s.sage-way between the colonel"s and Bachelors" Row. Here again he stopped short, and waited with bated breath and scarcely-beating heart. The faint light he had seen before again illumined the room and cast its gleam upon the old gray wall. Even as he gazed, there came silently to the window a tall, white-robed form, and a slender white hand seized and lowered the shade, noiselessly.
Then, as before, the light faded away; but--she was awake.
Waiting one moment in silence, Captain Chester then sprang up the wooden steps and pa.s.sed under the piazza which ran the length of the bachelor quarters. Half-way down the row he turned sharply to his left, opened the green-painted door, and stood in a little dark hall-way. Taking his match-box from his pocket, he struck a light, and by its glare quickly read the card upon the first door-way to his right:
"MR. HOWARD F. JERROLD,
"----_th Infantry, U.S.A._"
Opening this door, he bolted straight through the little parlor to the bedroom in the rear. A dim light was burning on the mantel. The bed was unruffled, untouched, and Mr. Jerrold was not there.
Five minutes afterwards, Captain Chester, all alone, had laboriously and cautiously dragged the ladder from the side to the rear of the colonel"s house, stretched it in the roadway where he had first stumbled upon it, then returned to the searching-party on "Number Five."
"Send two men to put that ladder back," he ordered. "It is where I told you,--on the road behind the colonel"s."
III.
When Mrs. Maynard came to Sibley in May and the officers with their wives were making their welcoming call, she had with motherly pride and pleasure yielded to their constant importunities and shown to one party after another an alb.u.m of photographs,--likenesses of her only daughter.
There were little _cartes de visite_ representing her in long dresses and baby-caps; quaint little pictures of a chubby-faced, chubby-legged infant a few months older; charming studies of a little girl with great black eyes and delicate features; then of a tall, slender slip of a maiden, decidedly foreign-looking; then of a sweet and pensive face, with great dark eyes, long, beautiful curling lashes, and very heavy, low-arched brows, exquisitely moulded mouth and chin, and most luxuriant dark hair; then others, still older, in every variety of dress,--even in fancy costume, such as the girl had worn at fair or masquerade. These and others still had Mrs. Maynard shown them, with repressed pride and pleasure and with sweet acknowledgment of their enthusiastic praises.
Alice still tarried in the East, visiting relatives whom she had not seen since her father"s death three years earlier, and, long before she came to join her mother at Sibley and to enter upon the life she so eagerly looked forward to, ""way out in the West, you know, with officers and soldiers and the band, and buffalo and Indians all around you," there was not an officer or an officer"s wife who had not delightedly examined that alb.u.m. There was still another picture, but that one had been shown to only a chosen few just one week after her daughter"s arrival, and rather an absurd scene had occurred, in which that most estimable officer, Lieutenant Sloat, had figured as the hero.
A more simple-minded, well-intentioned fellow than Sloat there did not live. He was so full of kindness and good nature and readiness to do anything for anybody that it never seemed to occur to him that everybody on earth was not just as ready to be equally accommodating. He was a perpetual source of delight to the colonel, and one of the most loyal and devoted of subalterns, despite the fact that his locks were long silvered with the frosts of years and that he had fought through the war of the rebellion and risen to the rank of a field-officer in Maynard"s old brigade. The most temperate of men, ordinarily, the colonel had one anniversary he loved to celebrate, and Sloat was his stand-by when the 3d of July came round, just as he had been at his shoulder at that supreme moment when, heedless of the fearful sweep of sh.e.l.l and canister through their shattered ranks, Pickett"s heroic Virginians breasted the slope of Cemetery Hill and surged over the low stone wall into Cushing"s guns. Hard, stubborn fighting had Maynard"s men to do that day, and for serene courage and determination no man had beaten Sloat. Both officers had bullet-hole mementos to carry from that field; both had won their brevets for conspicuous gallantry, and Sloat was a happy and grateful man when, years afterwards, his old commander secured him a lieutenancy in the regular service. He was the colonel"s henchman, although he never had brains enough to win a place on the regimental staff, and when Mrs.
Maynard came he overwhelmed her with c.u.mbrous compliments and incessant calls. He was, to his confident belief, her chosen and accepted knight for full two days after her arrival. Then Jerrold came back from a brief absence, and, as in duty bound, went to pay his respects to his colonel"s wife; and that night there had been a singular scene. Mrs.
Maynard had stopped suddenly in her laughing chat with two ladies, had started from her seat, wildly staring at the tall, slender subaltern who entered the gateway, and then fell back in her chair, fairly swooning as he made his bow.
Sloat had rushed into the house to call the colonel and get some water, while Mr. Jerrold stood paralyzed at so strange a reception of his first call. Mrs. Maynard revived presently, explained that it was her heart, or the heat, or something, and the ladies on their way home decided that it was possibly the heart, it was certainly not the heat, it was unquestionably something, and that something was Mr. Jerrold, for she never took her eyes off him during the entire evening, and seemed unable to shake off the fascination. Next day Jerrold dined there, and from that time on he was a daily visitor. Every one noted Mrs. Maynard"s strong interest in him, but no one could account for it. She was old enough to be his mother, said the garrison; but not until Alice Renwick came did another consideration appear: he was singularly like the daughter. Both were tall, lithe, slender; both had dark, l.u.s.trous eyes, dark, though almost perfect, skin, exquisitely-chiselled features, and slender, shapely hands and feet. Alice was "the picture of her father,"
said Mrs. Maynard, and Mr. Renwick had lived all his life in New York; while Mr. Jerrold was of an old Southern family, and his mother a Cuban beauty who was the toast of the New Orleans clubs not many years before the war.
Poor Sloat! He did not fancy Jerrold, and was as jealous as so unselfish a mortal could be of the immediate ascendency the young fellow established in the colonel"s household. It was bad enough before Alice joined them; after that it was wellnigh unbearable. Then came the 3d-of-July dinner and the colonel"s one annual jollification. No man ever heard of Sloat"s being intoxicated; he rarely drank at all; but this evening the reminiscences of the day, the generous wine, the unaccustomed elegance of all his surroundings, due to Mrs. Maynard"s taste and supervision, and the influence of Alice Kenwick"s exquisite beauty, had fairly carried him away.
They were chatting in the parlor, while Miss Renwick was entertaining some young-lady friends from town and listening to the band on the parade. Sloat was expatiating on her grace and beauty and going over the alb.u.m for the twentieth time, when the colonel, with a twinkling eye, remarked to Mrs. Maynard,--
"I think you ought to show Major[A] Sloat the "Directoire" picture, my dear."
"Alice would never forgive me," said madame, laughing; "though I consider it the most beautiful we have of her."
"Oh, where is it?" "Oh, do let us see it, Mrs. Maynard!" was the chorus of exclamations from the few ladies present. "Oh, I _insist_ on seeing it, madame," was Sloat"s characteristic contribution to the clamor.
"I want you to understand it," said Mrs. Maynard, pleased, but still hesitating. "We are very daft about Alice at home, you know, and it"s quite a wonder she has not been utterly spoiled by her aunts and uncles; but this picture was a specialty. An artist friend of ours fairly _made_ us have it taken in the wedding-dress worn by her grandmother. You know the Josephine Beauharnais "Directoire" style that was worn in seventeen ninety-something. Her neck and shoulders are lovely, and that was why we consented. I went, and so did the artist, and we posed her, and the photograph is simply perfect of her face, and neck too, but when Alice saw it she blushed furiously and forbade my having them finished.
Afterwards, though, she yielded when her aunt Kate and I begged so hard and promised that none should be given away, and so just half a dozen were finished. Indeed, the dress is by no means as _decollete_ as many girls wear theirs at dinner now in New York; but poor Alice was scandalized when she saw it last month, and she never would let me put one in the alb.u.m."
"Oh, _do_ go and get it, Mrs. Maynard!" pleaded the ladies. "Oh, _please_ let me see it, Mrs. Maynard!" added Sloat; and at last the mother-pride prevailed. Mrs. Maynard rustled up-stairs, and presently returned holding in her hands a delicate silver frame in filigree-work, a quaint foreign affair, and enclosed therein was a cabinet photograph _en vignette_,--the head, neck, and shoulders of a beautiful girl; and the dainty, diminutive, what-there-was-of-it waist of the old-fashioned gown, sashed almost immediately under the exquisite bust, revealed quite materially the cause of Alice Renwick"s blushes. But a more beautiful portrait was never photographed. The women fairly gasped with delight and envy. Sloat could not restrain his impatience to get it in his own hands, and finally he grasped it and then eyed it in rapture. It was two minutes before he spoke a word, while the colonel sat laughing at his worshipping gaze. Mrs. Maynard somewhat uneasily stretched forth her hand, and the other ladies impatiently strove to regain possession.
"Come, Major Sloat, you"ve surely had it long enough. _We_ want it again."
"Never!" said Sloat, with melodramatic intensity. "Never! This is my ideal of perfection,--of divinity in woman. I will bear it home with me, set it above my fireside, and adore it day and night."
"Nonsense, Major Sloat!" said Mrs. Maynard, laughing, yet far from being at her ease. "Come, I _must_ take it back. Alice may be in any minute now, and if she knew I had betrayed her she would never forgive me.
Come, surrender!" And she strove to take it from him.
But Sloat was in one of his utterly asinine moods. He would have been perfectly willing to give any sum he possessed for so perfect a picture as this. He never dreamed that there were good and sufficient reasons why _no_ man should have it. He so loved and honored his colonel that he was ready to lay down his life for any of his household. In laying claim to this picture he honestly believed that it was the highest proof he could give of his admiration and devotion. A tame surrender now meant that his protestations were empty words. "Therefore," argued Sloat, "I must stand firm."
"Madame," said he, "I"d die first." And with that he began backing to the door.
Alarmed now, Mrs. Maynard sprang after him, and the little major leaped upon a chair, his face aglow, jolly, rubicund, beaming with bliss and triumph. She looked up, almost wringing her hands, and turned half appealingly to the colonel, who was laughing heartily on the sofa, never dreaming Sloat could be in earnest.
"Here, I"ll give you back the frame: I don"t want that," said Sloat, and began fumbling at the back of the photograph. This was too much for the ladies. They, too, rushed to the rescue. One of them sprang to and shut the door, the other seized and violently shook the back of his chair, and Sloat leaped to the floor, still clinging to his prize, and laughing as though he had never had so much entertainment in his life. The long Venetian windows opened upon the piazza, and towards the nearest one he retreated, holding aloft the precious gage and waving off the attacking party with the other hand. He was within a yard of the blinds, when they were suddenly thrown open, a tall, slender form stepped quickly in, one hand seized the uplifted wrist, the other the picture, and in far less time than it takes to tell it Mr. Jerrold had wrenched it away and, with quiet bow, restored it to its rightful owner.
"Oh, I say, now, Jerrold, that"s downright unhandsome of you!" gasped Sloat. "I"d have been on my way home with it."
"Shut up, you fool!" was the sharp, hissing whisper. "Wait till I go home, if you want to talk about it." And, as quickly as he came, Mr.
Jerrold slipped out again upon the piazza.
Of course the story was told with varied comment all over the post.
Several officers were injudicious enough to chaff the old subaltern about it, and--he was a little sore-headed the next day, anyway--the usually placid Sloat grew the more indignant at Jerrold. He decided to go and upbraid him; and, as ill luck would have it, they met before noon on the steps of the club-room.