People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 October 1893 — WARING'S [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WARING'S

By PERIL.

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[Copyright, 1893, by J. B. Lippincott . Co., and published by special arrangement] IX.—Continued. •‘What swells you fellows are, F,erry!” he said, laughingly, as the youngster came dancing down. “Even old Doyle gets out here in his scarlet plume occasionally and puts us doughhoys to shame. What’s the use in trying to make such a rig as ours look soldierly? If it were not for the "brass , buttons our coats would make us look like parsons and our hats like monkeys. As for this undress, all that can be said in its favor is you can’t spoil it even by sleeping out on the levee in it, as I am sometimes tempted to do. Let’s go out there now.” It was perhaps quarter of two when they took their seats on the wooden be.'ch under ,the trees, and, lighting thev pipes, gazed out over the broad sweeping flood of the Mississippi, gleaming like a silvered shield in the moonlight. Far across at the opposite shore the low line of orange groves and plantation houses and quarters was merged in one long streak of gloom, relieved only at intervals by twinkling light. Farther up-stream, like dozing sea-dogs, the fleet of monitors lay moored along the bank, with the masts and roofs of Algiers dimly outlined against the crescent sweep of lights that marked the levee of the great southern metropolis, still prostrate from the savage buffeting of the war, yet so soon to rouse from lethargy, resume her sway, and, stretching forth her arms, to draw once again to her bosom the wealth and tribute, tenfold augmented, of the very heart of the nation, until, mistress of the commerce of a score of states, shfe should rival even New York in the volume of her trade. Below them, away to the east towards English Turn, rolled the tawny flood, each ripple and eddy and swirling pool crested with silver —the twinkling lights at Chalmette barely distinguishable from dim, low-hanging stars. Midway the black hulk of some big ocean voyager was forging slowly, steadily towards them, the red light of the port side already obscured, the white and green growing with every minute more and more distinct, and, save the faint rustle of the leaves overhead, murmuring under the touch of the soft, southerly night wind, the splash of wavelet against the wooden pier, and the measured footfall of the sentry on the flagstone walk in front of the sally-port, not a sound was to be heard. For awhile they smoked in silence, enjoying the beauty of the night, though each was thinking only of the storm that swept over the scene the Sunday previous and of the tragedy that was borne upon its wings. At last Kinsey shook himself together. “Ferry, sometimes I come out here for a quiet smoke and think. Did it ever occur to you what a fearful force, what illimitable power, there is sweeping by us here night after night with never a sound?” “Oh, you mean the Mississip,” said Ferry, flippantly. “It would be a case of mops and brooms, Infancy, if she were to bust through the bank and sweep us out into the swamps.” “Exactly! that’s in case she broke loose, as you say; but even when in the shafts, as she is now, between the levees, how long would it take her to sweep a fellow from here out into the gulf, providing nothing interposed 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 ifhere she’s booming. Look at that barrel ecooting down yonder. Now, I’d lay a fiver I could cut loose from here at reveille and shoot the passes before taps and never pull a stroke. It’s less than eighty miles down to the forts.” “Well, then, a skiff like that that old Anatole’s blaspheming about losing wouldn’t take very long to ride over that route, would it?” said Kinsey, reflectively. “No, not if allowed to slide. But somebody’d be sure to put out and haul it in as a prize—flotsam and what-you-may-call-’em. You see these old niggers all along here with their skiffs tacking on to every bit of drift wood that’s worth having.” “But, Ferry, do you think they’d ven- # ture out in such a storm as Sunday last?—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 afraii of, and what Cram and Reynolds dread.” “Do they? Well, so far as that storm's concerned, it would have*blown it down 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 inch of it has been scouted all the way to quarantine. The whole river was filled with drift though, and it might have been wedged in a lot of logs and swept out anyhow. Splendid ship, that! Who is she, do you suppose?” The great black hull with its lofty tracery of masts and spars was now just about opposite the barracks, slowly and majestically ascending the stream. “One of those big British freight steamers that moor there below the French market, I reckon. They Seldom come up at night unless it’s in the full 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-port dashed through the echoing vault, then bang! came the loud roar of his piece, followed by the yell of: “Fire! fire! The guard!” With one spring Ferry was down the levee and darted like a deer across the read, Kinsey lumbering heavily after; Even as he sped through the stoneflagged 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 madly screaming for help. Guards and sentries were rushing to the scene, and flames were bursting from the front window of Doyle’s quarters. Swift though Ferry ran, others were closer to the spot. Half a dozen active young soldiers, members of the infantry guard, had sprung to the rescue. When Ferry dashed up to the gallefy he was just in time to stumble over a writhing and prostrate form, to help extinguish the blazing clothing of another, to seize his water backet and

douse its contents over a third—one yelling, the others stupefied by smoke —or something. In less time than it takes to tell it, daring fellows had ripped down the blazing shades and shutters, tossed them to the parade beneath, dumped a heap of soaked and smoking bedding out of the rear windows, splashed a few 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 life to two senseless forms, and to still the shrieks of agony that burst from th* reared and blistered lips of Bridget tJoyia While willing hands bore these scorched semblances of humanity to neighboring rooms and tender-hearted women hurried to add their ministering touch,and old Braxton ordered the excited garrison back to quarters and bed, he, with Cram and Kinsey and Ferry, made prompt examination of the premises. On the table two whisky bottles, one empty, one nearly full, that Dr. Potts declared were not there when he left at one. On the mantel a phial of chloroform, which was also not there before. But a towel soaked with the stifling contents lay on the floor by Jim’s rude pallet, and a handkerchief half soaked, half consumed, was on the chair which had stood by the bedside among the fragments of an overturned kerosene lamp. A quick examination of the patients showed that Jim, the negro, had been chloroformed and was not burned at all, that Doyle was severely burned and had probably inhaled flames, and that the woman was crazed with drink, terror and burns combined. It took the efforts of two or three men and the influence of powerful opiates to quiet her. Taxed with negligence or complicity on the part of the sentry, the sergeant of the guard repudiated the idea, and assured Col. Braxton that it was an easy matter for anyone to get either in or out of the garrison, without encountering the sentry, and taking his lantern led the way to the hospital grounds by a winding footpath among the trees to a point in the high white picket fence where two slats had been shoved aside. Anyone coming along the street without could pass far beyond the ken of the sentry at the west gate, and slip in with the utmost ease, and once inside all that was necessary was to dodge possible reliefs and patrols. No sentry was posted at the gate through the wall that separated the garrison proper from the hospital grounds. Asked why he had not reported this, the sergeant smiled and said there were a dozen others 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 theofficera’ families got fairly settled down

again and back to their beds, and the silence of night once more reigned over Jackson barracks. One would suppose that such a scene of terror and excitement was enough, and that now the trembling, frightened women might be allowed to sleep in peace; but it was not to be. Hardly had one of their number closed her eyes, hardly had all the flickering lights, save those at the hospital and guardhouse, been downed again, when the strained nerves of the occupants of the officers’ quadrangle were jumped into mad jangling once more and aH 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 junior lieutenant of infantry occupying a set of quarters in the same building with, but at the opposite end from, Pierce and Waring, was found lying senseless at the head of the gaUery stairs. When revived, amid tears and tremblings and incoherent exclamations she declared that she had gone down to the big ice-chest on the ground-floor to get some milk for her nervous and frightened child and was hurrying noiselessly up the stairs again—the only means of communication between the first and second’floors— when, face to face, in front of his door, she came upon Mr. Waring, or his ghost; that his eyes were fixed 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 my knife?” And then little Pierce, who had helped to raise and carry the stricken woman to her room, suddenly darted out on the gallery and ran along to the door he had closed four hours earlier. It was open. Striking a match, he hurried through into the chamber beyond, and there, face downward upon the bed, lay his friend and comrade Waring, moaning like one in the delirium of fever. X Lieut. Reynolds was seated at his desk at department headquarters

about nine o’clock that morning when an orderly in light-battery dress dismounted at the banquette and came up the stairs three at a jump. “Capt. Cram’s compliments, sir, and this is immediate,” he reported, as he held forth a note. Reynolds tore it open, read it hastily through, then said: “Go and fetch me a cab quick as you can,” and disappeared in the general’s room. Half an hour later he was spinning down the levee' towards the French market, and before ten o’clock was seated in the captain’s cabin of the big British steamer Ambassador, which had arrived at her moorings during the night. Cram and Kinsey were already there, and to them the skipper was telling his story. Off the Tortugas, just about as they had shaped their course for the Belize, they were hailed by the little steamer Tampa, bound from. New Orleans to Havana. The sea wls calm, and a boat put off from the Tampa and came alongside, and presently a gentleman was assisted aboard. He seemed weak from illness, but explained that he was Lieut. Waring, of the United States artillery, had been accidentally carried off to sea, and the Ambassador was the first inward-bound ship they had sighted since crossing the bar. He would be most thankful for a passage back to New Orleans. Capt. Baird had welcomed him with the heartiness of the British tar, and made him at home in his cabin. The lieutenant was evidently far from well, and seemed somewhat dazed and mentally distressed. He could give no account of his mishap other than that told him by the officers of the Tampa, which had lain to when overtaken by the gale on Saturday night, and on Sunday morning when they resumed their course downstream they overhauled a light skiff and were surprised to find a man aboard, drenched and senseless. “The left side of his face was badly bruised and discolored, even when he came to us,” said Baird, “and he must have been slugged and robbed, for his watch, his seal-ring and what little money he had were all gone.” The second officer of the Tampa had fitted him out with a clean shirt, and the steward dried his clothing as best he could, but the coat was stained and' clotted with blood. Mr. Waring had slept heavily much of the way back until passed Pilot Town. Then he was up and dressed Thursday afternoon, and seemingly in better spirits, when he picked up a copy of the New Orleans Picayune which the pilot had left aboard,' and was reading that, when suddenly he started to his feet with an exclamation of amaze, and, when the captain turned to see what was the matter, Waring was ghastlj pale and fearfully excited by something he had read. He hid the paper under his coat and sprang up on deck and paced nervously to and fro for

hours, and began to grow ao ill, apparently, that Capt Baird was much worried. At night he begged to be put ashore at the barracks instead of going on up to town, and Baird had become so troubled about him that he sent his second officer in the gig with him, landed him on the levee opposite the sally-port, and there, thanking them heartily, but declining further assistance, Waring had hurried through the entrance into the barrack square. Mr. Royce, the second officer, said there was considerable excitement, beating of drums and sounding of bugles, at the post, as they rowed towards the shore. He did not learn the cause. Capt. Baird was most anxious to learn if the gentleman had safely reached his destination. Cram replied that he had, but in a state bordering on delirium and unable to give any coherent account of himself. He could tell he had been aboard the Ambassador and the Tampa, but that was about all. And then they told Baird that what Waring probably saw was Wednesday’s paper with the details of the inquest on the body of Lascelles and the chain of evidence pointing to himself as the murderer. This caused honest Capt Baird to lay ten to one he wasn’t, and five to one he’d never heard of it till he got the paper above Pilot Town. Whereupon all three officers clapped the Briton on the back and shook him by the hand and begged his company to dinner at the barracks and at Moreau’s; and then, while Reynolds sped to the police office and Kinsey back to Col. Braxton, whom he represented at the interview, Cram remounted, and, followed by the faithful Jeffers, trotted up Rampart street and sent in his card to Mme. Lascelles, and madame’s maid brought back reply that she was still too shocked and stricken to receive visitors. So also did Mme. d’Hervilly deny herself, and Cram rode home to Nell. [TO Bl OONTINUID.]

“THIS LETTER CAME TO BRASTON BY HAND, NOT BY MAIL.”