People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1893 — WARING'S [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WARING'S

By PERIL. CAPI CHARLES KING U.S.ARMY.

£Copyright, 1898. by J. B. Lippincott Ca, and published by special arrangement] VL And all day long the storm beat upon the substantial buildings of the old barracks and flooded the low ground about the sheds and stables. Drills for the infantry were necessarily suspended, several sentries even being taken off their posts. The men clustered in the squad-rooms and listened with more or less credulity to the theories and confirmatory statements of fact as related by the imaginative or loquacious of their number. The majority of the officers gathered under the flaring lamp-lights at the sutler’s store and occupied themselves pretty much as did their inferiors in grade, though poker and punch —specialties of Mr. Finkbein, the sutler —lent additional color to the stories in circulation. From this congress the better element of the commissioned force was absent, the names, nationalities and idiomatigjoeculiarities of speech of the Individual members being identical in most instances with those of their comrades in arms in the ranks. “Brax” had summoned Minor, Lawrence, Kinsey and Dryden to hear what the post surgeon had to say on his return, but cautioned them to keep quiet. As a result of this precaution, the mystery of the situation became redoubled by one o’clock, and was intensified by two, when it was annpunced that Private Dawson had attempted to break away out of the hospital after a visit from the same ddctor ip his professional capacity. People were tempted out on their galleries in the driving storm, and colored servants flitted from kitchen to kitchen to gather 0* dispense new rumors, but nobody knew what to make of it when, soon after two, an orderly rode in from town dripping with mud and wet, delivered a note to the colonel and took one from him to Mr. Ferry, now sole representative of the officers of Battery “JC” present for duty. Ferry in return sent the bedraggled horseman on to the battery quarters with an order to the first sergeant, and in about fifteen minutes a sergeant and two men, mounted and each leading a spare

horse, appeared under Ferry’s gallery,, and that officer proceeded to occupy one of the vacant saddles and, followed by his party, went clattering out of the sally-port and splashing over to the levee. Stable call sounded as usual at four o’clock, and, for the first time in the record of that disciplined organization since the devastating hand of yellow jack was laid upon it the previous year, no officer appeared to supervise the grooming and feeding. Two of them were at the post, however. Mr. Doyle, in arrest on charge of absence without leave, was escorted to his quarters about four-fifteen,,and was promptly visited by sympathizing and inquisitive comrades from the Hotel Finkbein, while Mr. Ferry, who had effected the arrest, was detained ‘making his report to the post commander. Night came on apace, the wind began to die away with the going down of the sun, the. rain ceased to fall, a pallid moon began peering at odd intervals through rifts in the cloudy veil, when Cram rode plashing back into barracks, worn with anxiety and care, at eleven o’clock, and stopping only for a moment to take his wife in his arms and kiss her anxious face and shake his head in response to her eager query for news of Waring, he hurried downstairs again and over to Doyle’s quarters. All was darkness there, but he never hesitated. Tramping loudly over tl»3 gallery, he banged at the door, then, turning the knob, intending to burst right in, as was the way in the rough old days, was surprised to find the bolt set. “Doyle, open. I want to see you at once.” All silence within. “Doyle, open, or, if you are too drunk to get up, I’ll kick in the door.” A groan, a whispered colloquy, then the rattle of bolts and chain. The door opened about an inch, and an oily Irish voice inquired: “Hwat’s wanted, capt’in?” “You here?” exclaimed Cram, in disgust. “W’hat business have you in this garrison? If the colonel knew it you’d he driven out at the point of the bay-

“Sore, where should wife be but at her husband’s side whin he’s sick and sufferin’? Didn’t they root him out of bed and comfort this day and ride him down like a felon in all the storm? Sure it was the doughboys’ orders, sir. ; I told Doyle the c&pt’in never would have—” “Oh, be quiet; I must see Doyle, and at once." “Sure, he’s not ahle, capt’in. You know how it is wid him; he’s that sinsitive he couldn’t bear to talk of the disgrace he’s bringing on the oapt’in and the batthery, and I knowed he’d been dhrinkin’, sir, and I came back to look for him, but he’d got started, capt’n, and it’s—” ■ “Stop this talk I He wasn’t drinking at all until yon came back here to hound him. Open that door, or a file of guard will.” “Och! thin wait till I’m dressed, for dacency’s sake, capt’in. Sure I’ll thry and wake him.”

And then more whispering, the click of glass, maudlin protestation in Doyle’s thick tones. Cram banged at the door and demanded instant obedience. Admitted at last, he strode to the side of an ordinary hospital cot, over which the mosquito bar was now ostentatiously drawn, and upon which was stretched the bulky frame of the big Irishman, his red, blear-eyed, bloated face half covered in his arms. The close air reeked with the fumes of whisky. In her distress lest Jim should take too much, the claimant of his name and protection had evidently been sequestrating a large share for herself. “How on earth did yon get here? Your house was flooded all day,” angrily asked Cram. “Sure we made a raft, sir—'Louette and me—and poled over to the levee, and I walked every fut of the way down to follow me husband, as I Bwore I would whin we was married. I’d ’a’ come in Anatole’s boat, sir, but ’twas gone—gone since last night. Did ye know that, capt’in?” A groan and a feverish toss from the occupant of the narrow bed interrupted her. “Hush, Jim darlin’! Here’s the capt’in to see you and tell you he’s come back to have you roighted. Sure ,how could a poor fellow be expected to come home in all that awful storm tills

morning, capt’in? ’Tis for not cornin’ the colonel had him under arrest; but I tell him the capt’in ’ll see him through.” But Cram pushed her aside as she still interposed between him and the bed. “Doyle, look up and answer. Doyle, I say!” Again vehement protestations, and how an outburst of tears and pleadings, from the woman. “Oh, he can’t understand you, capt’in. Ah, don’t be hard on him. Only this mornin’ he was sayin’ how the capt’in reminded him of the ould foine days whin the officers wps all gintlemen and soldiers. He’s truer to ye than all the rest of thim, sir. D’ye moind that, capt’in? Ye wouldn’t belave it, mabby, but there’s them that can tell ye Loot’nant Waring was no friend of yours, sir, and worse than that, if ould Lascelles could spake how —but there’s thim left that can, glory be to God!”

“Oh, for God’s sake shut up,” spoke Cram roughly, goaded beyond all patience. “Doyle, answer me!” And he shook him hard. “You were at the Pelican last night, and you saw Mr. Waring and spoke with him? What did he want of you? Where did he go? Who were with him? Was there any quarrel? Answer, I say! Do you know?” But maudlin moaning and incoherencies were all that Cram could extract from the prostrate man. Again the woman interposed, eager, tearful. “Sure he was there, capt’in, he was there; he told me of it whin I fetched him home last night to git him out of the storm and away from that place; but he’s too dhrunk now to talk. Sure there was no gettin’ down here to barx for anybody. The cabman, sir, 6aid no carriage could make it.” “What cabman? That’s one thing I want to know. Who is he? W’hat became of him?”

“Sure and how do I know, sir? He was a quiet, dacent man, sir; the same that Mr. Waring bate so cruel and made Jeffers kick and bate him too. I saw it all.” “And was he at the Pelican last night? I must know.” “Sure he was indade, sir. Doyle said so when I fetched him home, and though he can’t tell you now, sir, he told me thin. They all came down to the Pelican, sir, Wearing and Lascelles and the other gintlemen, and they had dhrink, and there was trouble between the Frenchman and Waring,— sure you can’t blame him, wid his wife goin’ on so wid the loot’nant all the lalst month, and blows was struck, and Doyle interposed to stop it, sir, loike the gintleman that he is, and the cab-driver took a hand and pitched

him out into the mod. Sure he’d been dhrinking a little, sir, and was aisy upset, but that's all he knows. The carriage drove sway, and there was three of thira, and poor Doyle got caught out there in the mud and in the storm, and ’twas me went out wid Dawson and another of the byes and fetched him in. And we niver heerd of the murther at all all, sir, until I came down here to-day, that’s God’s troot, and he’ll tell ye so whin he’s sober,” she ended breathlessly, reckless of her descriptive confusion of Doyle and Divinity. And still the Irishman lay there, limp, soggy, senseless, and at last, dismayed and disheartened, the i&ptain turned away. “Promise to sober him up by reveille, and yon may stay. But hear this: If he cannot answer for himself by that time, out you go in .the battery cart with a policeman to lake you to the calaboose." And then he left.

No sooner had his footsteps died away than the woman turned on her patient, now struggling to a sitting posture. “Lie still, you thafe and cur, and sware yon to every word I say, unless you’d hang in his place. Dhrink this, now, and go to slape, and be riddy to tell the story I give ye in the mornin’, or may the knife ye drove in that poor mummy’s throat come back to cut your coward heart out.” And Doyle, shivering, sobbing, crazed with drink and fear, covered his eyes with his hands and threw himself back on his hot and steaming pillow'. The morning sun rose brilliant and cloudless as the horses of the battery came forth from the dark interior of the stable and, after watering at the long wooden trough on the platform, were led away by their white-frocked grooms, each section to its own picketline. Ferry, supervising the duty, presently caught sight of the tall muscular form of his captain coming briskly around the comer, little Pierce tripping along by his side. Cram acknowledged the salute of the battery officer of the day in hurried fashion. “Good-morning, Ferry,” he said. “ Tell me, who were there when yon got Doyle away from that woman yesterday?” “ Only the three, sir,—Mr. and Mrs. Doyle and the negro girl.”

“No sign of anybody else?” “None, sir. I didn’t go in the house at all. I rode in the gate and called for Doyle to come out. The woman tried to parley, but I refused to recognize her at all, and presently Doyle obeyed without any trouble whatever, though she kept up a tirade all the time and said he was too sipk to ride and all that, but he wasn’t. He seemed dazed, but not drunk—certainly not sick. He rode all right, only he shivered and crossed himself and moaned when he passed the Lascelles place, for that hound pup set up a howl just as we were opposite the big gate. He was all trembling when we reached the post, and took a big drink the moment he got to his room.” “Ye-es, he’s been drinking ever since. I’ve just sent the doctor to see him. Let the corporal and one man of the guard go with the ambulance to escort Mrs. Doyle out of the garrison and take her home. S)fe shall not stay.” she’s gone, sir,” said Ferry. “The guard told me 6he went out of the gate and up the track towards Anatole’s—going for aU she was worth —just after dawn.” “The mischief she has! What can have started her? Did you see her yourself, Sergt. Bennett?” asked the captain of a stocky little Irish soldier, standing at the moment with drawn saber awaiting opportunity to speak to his commander. “Yes, sir,” and the saber came flashing up to the present. “She’d wint over to the hospital to get some medicine for the lieutenant just after our bugle sounded first call, and she came runnin’ out as I wint to call the officer of the day, sir. She ran back to the lieutenant’s quarters ahead of me, and was up only a minute or two whin down she came wid some bundles, and away she wint to the north running, wild-like. The steward told me a moment after of Dawson’s escape.” “Dawson! escaped from hospital?” “Yes, sir. They thought he was all right last evening when he was sleeping, and took the sentry off, and at four this morning he was gone.”

Vlt *Forty-eight hours had passed, and not a trace had been found of Lieut. Waring. The civil officers of the law had held grave converse with the seniors on duty at the barracks, and Cram’s face was / lined with anxiety and trouble. The formal inquest was held as the flood subsided, and the evidence of the .“post surgeon was most important. About the throat of the murdered nan were indubitable marks of violence/ The skin was torn as by the flesh bruised and discolored ajf by fiercely-grasping fingers. But death, said the doctor, was caused

by th* single stab. Driven downward with savage force, a sharp-pointed, two-edged, atraight-bladed knife had pierced the heart, and all was over in an instant. One other wound there was, a slashing cut across the stomach, which had let a large amount of blood, but might possibly not have been mortal. What part the deceased had taken in the struggle could only be conjectured. A little five-chambered revolver which he habitually carried was found on the floor close at hand. Two charges had been recently fired, for the barrel was black with powder; but no one had heard ft shot.

The barkeeper at the Pelican coiild throw but little light Oh the matter. The storm had broken, he said, with sudden fury. The rain dashed in torrents against his western front, and threatened to beat in the windows. He called to two men who happened to be seated at a table to assist him, and was busy trying to get up the shutters, when Lieut. Doyle joined them and rendered timely aid. He had frequently seen Doyle during the previous month. Mrs. Doyle lived in the old Lemaitre house in the block below, and he often supplied them with whisky. They drank nothing but whisky. As they ran in the side door they were surprised to see the lights of a carriage standing at the edge of the banquette, and the driver begged for shelter for his team, saying some gentlemen had gone inside. The barkeeper opened a gate, and the driver put his horses under a shed in a paved court in the rear, then came in for a drink. Meantime, 6aid the barkeeper, whose name was Bonelli, three gentlemen who were laughing over their escape from the storm had ordered wine and gone into a private room, Doyle with them. The only one he knew was M. Lascelles, though he had seen one of the others frequently as he rode by, and knew him to be an officer before Mr. Doyle slapped him on the back and hailed him as “Sammy, old buck!” or something like that. Mr. Doyle had been drinking, and the gentleman whispered to him not to intrude just 'then, and evidently wanted to get rid of him, but M. Lascelles, who had ordered the wine, demanded to be introduced, and would take no denial, and invited Mr. Doyle to join them, and ordered more wine. And then Bonelli saw that Lascelles himself was excited by drink —the first time ho had ever noticed it in the year he had known him. The third gentleman he had never seen before, and could only say he was dark and sallow and did not talk, except to urge the driver to make haste,—they j must go on; but he spoke in a low ; tone with Mr. Lascelles as they went to the room, and presently the rain j seemed to let up a little, though it : blew hard, and the driver went out and looked around and then returned to the private room where the gentlemen were having their wine, and ther was sßme angry talk, and he came out in a few minutes, very mad; said he wouldn’t be hired to drive that party any farther, or any other party, for that matter; that no carriage could go down the levee; and then he got out his team and drove back to town. pro BH CONTINUED.]

"YOU NEED NOT LIE, JEFFERS," HE SAID.