Waring's Peril

by Charles King

  CHAPTER IX.

  That night, or very early next morning, there was pandemonium at thebarracks. It was clear, still, beautiful. A soft April wind was driftingup from the lower coast, laden with the perfume of sweet olive andorange blossoms. Mrs. Cram, with one or two lady friends and a party ofofficers, had been chatting in low tone upon their gallery until aftereleven, but elsewhere about the moonlit quadrangle all was silence whenthe second relief was posted. Far at the rear of the walled enclosure,where, in deference to the manners and customs of war as observed in thegood old days whereof our seniors tell, the sutler's establishment wasplanted within easy hailing-distance of the guard-house, there was stillthe sound of modified revelry by night, and poker and whiskey punch hadgathered their devotees in the grimy parlors of Mr. Finkbein, and herethe belated ones tarried until long after midnight, as most of themwere bachelors and had no better halves, as had Doyle, to fetch themhome "out of the wet." Cram and his lieutenants, with the exception ofDoyle, were never known to patronize this establishment, whatsoever theymight do outside. They had separated before midnight, and little Pierce,after his customary peep into Waring's preserves, had closed the door,gone to his own room, to bed and to sleep. Ferry, as battery officer ofthe day, had made the rounds of the stables and gun-shed about oneo'clock, and had encountered Captain Kinsey, of the infantry, coming infrom his long tramp through the dew-wet field, returning from theinspection of the sentry-post at the big magazine.

  "No news of poor Sam yet, I suppose?" said Kinsey, sadly, as the twocame strolling in together through the rear gate.

  "Nothing whatever," was Ferry's answer. "We cannot even form aconjecture, unless he, too, has been murdered. Think of there being awarrant out for his arrest,--for him, Sam Waring!"

  "Well," said Kinsey, "no other conclusion could he well arrived at,unless that poor brute Doyle did it in a drunken row. Pills says henever saw a man so terror-stricken as he seems to be. He's afraid toleave him, really, and Doyle's afraid to be alone,--thinks the old womanmay get in."

  "She has no excuse for coming, captain," said Ferry. "When she told Cramshe must see her husband to-day, that she was out of money and starving,the captain surprised her by handing her fifty dollars, which is muchmore than she'd have got from Doyle. She took it, of course, but thatisn't what she wanted. She wants to get at him. She has money enough."

  "Yes, that woman's a terror, Ferry. Old Mrs. Murtagh, wife of myquartermaster sergeant, has been in the army twenty years, and says sheknew her well,--knew all her people. She comes from a tough lot, andthey had a bad reputation in Texas in the old days. Doyle's a totallydifferent man since she turned up, Cram tells me. Hello! here's 'Pillsthe Less,'" he suddenly exclaimed, as they came opposite the west gate,leading to the hospital. "How's your patient, Doc?"

  "Well, he's sleeping at last. He seems worn out. It's the first timeI've left him, but I'm used up and want a few hours' sleep. There isn'tanything to drink in the room, even if he should wake, and Jim issleeping or lying there by him."

  "Oh, he'll do all right now, I reckon," said the officer of the day,cheerfully. "Go and get your sleep. The old woman can't get at himunless she bribes my sentries or rides the air on a broomstick, likesome other old witches I've read of. Ferry sleeps in the adjoining room,anyhow, so he can look out for her. Good-night, Doc." And so, on theywent, glancing upward at the dim light just showing through thewindow-blinds in the gable end of Doyle's quarters, and halting at thefoot of the stairs.

  "Come over and have a pipe with me, Ferry," said the captain. "It's toobeautiful a night to turn in. I want to talk to you about Waring,anyhow. This thing weighs on my mind."

  "Done with you, for an hour, anyhow!" said Ferry. "Just wait a minutetill I run up and get my baccy."

  Presently down came the young fellow again, meerschaum in hand, themoonlight glinting on his slender figure, so trim and jaunty in thebattery dress. Kinsey looked him over with a smile of soldierlyapproval and a whimsical comment on the contrast between the appearanceof this young artillery sprig and that of his own stout personality,clad as he was in a bulging blue flannel sack-coat, only distinguishablein cut and style from civilian garb by its having brass buttons and apair of tarnished old shoulder-straps. Ferry was a swell. His shelljacket fitted like wax. The Russian shoulder-knots of twisted gold wereof the handsomest make. The riding-breeches, top-boots, and spurs weresuch that even Waring could not criticise. His sabre gleamed in themoonbeams, and Kinsey's old leather-covered sword looked dingy bycontrast. His belt fitted trim and taut, and was polished as hisboot-tops; Kinsey's sank down over the left hip, and was worn brown. Thesash Ferry sported as battery officer of the day was draped, West Pointfashion, over the shoulder and around the waist, and accurately knottedand looped; Kinsey's old war-worn crimson net was slunghiggledy-piggledy over his broad chest.

  "What swells you fellows are, Ferry!" he said, laughingly, as theyoungster came dancing down. "Even old Doyle gets out here in hisscarlet plume occasionally and puts us doughboys to shame. What's theuse in trying to make such a rig as ours look soldierly? If it were notfor the brass buttons our coats would make us look like parsons and ourhats like monkeys. As for this undress, all that can be said in itsfavor is, you can't spoil it even by sleeping out on the levee in it, asI am sometimes tempted to do. Let's go out there now."

  It was perhaps quarter of two when they took their seats on the woodenbench under the trees, and, lighting their pipes, gazed out over thebroad sweeping flood of the Mississippi, gleaming like a silvered shieldin the moonlight. Far across at the opposite shore the low line oforange-groves and plantation houses and quarters was merged in one longstreak of gloom, relieved only at intervals by twinkling light. Fartherup-stream, like dozing sea-dogs, the fleet of monitors lay moored alongthe bank, with the masts and roofs of Algiers dimly outlined against thecrescent sweep of lights that marked the levee of the great Southernmetropolis, still prostrate from the savage buffeting of the war, yet sosoon to rouse from lethargy, resume her sway, and, stretching forth herarms, to draw once again to her bosom the wealth and tribute, tenfoldaugmented, of the very heart of the nation, until, mistress of thecommerce of a score of States, she should rival even New York in thevolume of her trade. Below them, away to the east towards English Turn,rolled the tawny flood, each ripple and eddy and swirling pool crestedwith silver,--the twinkling lights at Chalmette barely distinguishablefrom dim, low-hanging stars. Midway the black hulk of some big oceanvoyager was forging slowly, steadily towards them, the red light of theport side already obscured, the white and green growing with everyminute more and more distinct, and, save the faint rustle of the leavesoverhead, murmuring under the touch of the soft, southerly night wind,the plash of wavelet against the wooden pier, and the measured footfallof the sentry on the flagstone walk in front of the sally-port, not asound was to be heard.

  For a while they smoked in silence, enjoying the beauty of the night,though each was thinking only of the storm that swept over the scene theSunday previous and of the tragedy that was borne upon its wings. Atlast Kinsey shook himself together.

  "Ferry, sometimes I come out here for a quiet smoke and think. Did itever occur to you what a fearful force, what illimitable power, there issweeping by us here night after night with never a sound?"

  "Oh, you mean the Mississip," said Ferry, flippantly. "It would be acase of mops and brooms, I fancy, if she were to bust through the bankand sweep us out into the swamps."

  "Exactly! that's in case she broke loose, as you say; but even when inthe shafts, as she is now, between the levees, how long would it takeher to sweep a fellow from here out into the gulf, providing nothinginterposed to stop him?"

  "Matter of simple mathematical calculation," said Ferry, practically."They say it's an eight-mile current easy out there in the middle whereshe's booming. Look at that barrel scooting down yonder. Now, I'd lay afiver I could cut loose from here at reveille and shoot the passesbefore taps and never pull a stroke. It's less than eighty miles down tothe fo
rts."

  "Well, then, a skiff like that that old Anatole's blaspheming aboutlosing wouldn't take very long to ride over that route, would it?" saidKinsey, reflectively.

  "No, not if allowed to slide. But somebody'd be sure to put out andhaul it in as a prize,--flotsam and what-you-may-call-'em. You see theseold niggers all along here with their skiffs tacking on to every hit ofdrift-wood that's worth having."

  "But, Ferry, do you think they'd venture out in such a storm as Sundaylast?--think anything could live in it short of a decked ship?"

  "No, probably not. Certainly not Anatole's boat."

  "Well, that's just what I'm afraid of, and what Cram and Reynoldsdread."

  "Do they? Well, so far as that storm's concerned, it would have blown itdown-stream until it came to the big bend below here to the east. Then,by rights, it ought to have blown against the left bank. But every inchof it has been scouted all the way to quarantine. The whole river wasfilled with drift, though, and it might have been wedged in a lot oflogs and swept out anyhow. Splendid ship, that! Who is she, do yousuppose?"

  The great black hull with its lofty tracery of masts and spars was nowjust about opposite the barracks, slowly and majestically ascending thestream.

  "One of those big British freight steamers that moor there below theFrench Market, I reckon. They seldom come up at night unless it's in thefull of the moon, and even then they move with the utmost caution. See,she's slowing up now."

  "Hello! Listen! What's that?" exclaimed Ferry, starting to his feet.

  A distant, muffled cry. A distant shot. The sentry at the sally-portdashed through the echoing vault, then bang! came the loud roar of hispiece, followed by the yell of--

  "Fire! fire! _The guard!_"

  With one spring Ferry was down the levee and darted like a deer acrossthe road, Kinsey lumbering heavily after. Even as he sped through thestone-flagged way, the hoarse roar of the drum at the guard-house,followed instantly by the blare of the bugle from the battery quarters,sounded the stirring alarm. A shrill, agonized female voice was madlyscreaming for help. Guards and sentries were rushing to the scene, andflames were bursting from the front window of Doyle's quarters. Swiftthough Ferry ran, others were closer to the spot. Half a dozen activeyoung soldiers, members of the infantry guard, had sprung to the rescue.When Ferry dashed up to the gallery he was just in time to stumble overa writhing and prostrate form, to help extinguish the blazing clothingof another, to seize his water-bucket and douse its contents over athird,--one yelling, the others stupefied by smoke--or something. Inless time than it takes to tell it, daring fellows had ripped down theblazing shades and shutters, tossed them to the parade beneath, dumped aheap of soaked and smoking bedding out of the rear windows, splashed afew bucketfuls of water about the reeking room, and the fire was out.But the doctors were working their best to bring back the spark of lifeto two senseless forms, and to still the shrieks of agony that burstfrom the seared and blistered lips of Bridget Doyle.

  While willing hands bore these scorched semblances of humanity toneighboring rooms and tender-hearted women hurried to add theirministering touch, and old Braxton ordered the excited garrison back toquarters and bed, he, with Cram and Kinsey and Ferry, made promptexamination of the premises. On the table two whiskey-bottles, oneempty, one nearly full, that Dr. Potts declared were not there when heleft at one. On the mantel a phial of chloroform, which was also notthere before. But a towel soaked with the stifling contents lay on thefloor by Jim's rude pallet, and a handkerchief half soaked, halfconsumed, was on the chair which had stood by the bedside, among thefragments of an overturned kerosene lamp.

  A quick examination of the patients showed that Jim, the negro, had beenchloroformed and was not burned at all, that Doyle was severely burnedand had probably inhaled flames, and that the woman was crazed withdrink, terror, and burns combined. It took the efforts of two or threemen and the influence of powerful opiates to quiet her. Taxed withnegligence or complicity on the part of the sentry, the sergeant of theguard repudiated the idea, and assured Colonel Braxton that it was aneasy matter for any one to get either in or out of the garrison withoutencountering the sentry, and, taking his lantern, led the way out to thehospital grounds by a winding foot-path among the trees to a point inthe high white picket fence where two slats had been shoved aside. Anyone coming along the street without could pass far beyond the ken of thesentry at the west gate, and slip in with the utmost ease, and onceinside, all that was necessary was to dodge possible reliefs andpatrols. No sentry was posted at the gate through the wall thatseparated the garrison proper from the hospital grounds. Asked why hehad not reported this, the sergeant smiled and said there were a dozenothers just as convenient, so what was the use? He did not say, however,that he and his fellows had recourse to them night after night.

  It was three o'clock when the officers' families fairly got settled downagain and back to their beds, and the silence of night once more reignedover Jackson Barracks. One would suppose that such a scene of terror andexcitement was enough, and that now the trembling, frightened womenmight be allowed to sleep in peace; but it was not to be. Hardly had oneof their number closed her eyes, hardly had all the flickering lights,save those at the hospital and guard-house, been downed again, when thestrained nerves of the occupants of the officers' quadrangle were jumpedinto mad jangling once more and all the barracks aroused a second time,and this, too, by a woman's shriek of horror.

  Mrs. Conroy, a delicate, fragile little body, wife of a juniorlieutenant of infantry occupying a set of quarters in the same buildingwith, but at the opposite end from, Pierce and Waring, was found lyingsenseless at the head of the gallery stairs.

  When revived, amid tears and tremblings and incoherent exclamations shedeclared that she had gone down to the big ice-chest on the ground-floorto get some milk for her nervous and frightened child and was hurryingnoiselessly up the stairs again,--the only means of communicationbetween the first and second floors,--when, face to face, in front ofhis door, she came upon Mr. Waring, or his ghost; that his eyes werefixed and glassy; that he did not seem to see her even when he spoke,for speak he did. His voice sounded like a moan of anguish, she said,but the words were distinct: "Where is my knife? Who has taken myknife?"

  And then little Pierce, who had helped to raise and carry the strickenwoman to her room, suddenly darted out on the gallery and ran along tothe door he had closed four hours earlier. It was open. Striking amatch, he hurried through into the chamber beyond, and there, facedownward upon the bed, lay his friend and comrade Waring, moaning likeone in the delirium of fever.