That was the way "Thinking Bayonets" argued it, and soldiers by the score crowding the sidewalk and entrance and unable to force their way in, or even to make room for a most importunate female struggling on the outskirts, hung on the words of an orderly who, despatched in further search of Lieutenant Ray, was forcing a way out.
"How is it going?" said he. "Why, that young feller's just as good as hanging himself. He admits having had the pistol that did the business."
Ten minutes later a Filipino servant went to answer an imperative rap at the panel in the massive door of No. 199 Calle San Luis. Dr. Frank had been early to see his patient, and had enjoined upon Mrs. Brent and Miss Porter silence as to last night's tragedy. Not until she was stronger was Miss Ray to be allowed to know of the murder of Private Benton. "By that time," said he, "we shall be able to clear up this—mystery—Ihope."
The colonel had gone round to the police-station. Mrs. Brent, nervous and unhappy, had just slipped out for ten seconds, as she said to Miss Porter, to see an old army chum and friend who lived only three doors away. Miss Porter, who had been awake hours of the night, had finally succeeded, as she believed, in reading Maidie to sleep, and then, stretching herself upon the bamboo couch across the room, was, the next thing she knew, aroused by voices.
Sandy Ray had entered so noiselessly that she had not heard, but Maidie had evidently been expecting him. In low, earnest tone he was telling the result of his search the night before. She heard the words:
"Connelly is down with some kind of fever in hospital and hasn't seen or heard anything of any one even faintly resembling Foster. Then I found your old friend the brakeman. General Vinton has got him a good place in the quartermaster's department, and he tells me he knows nothing, has seen and heard nothing. Now I'm going to division head-quarters to find Stuyvesant."
"And then," said Miss Porter, "my heart popped up into my throat and I sprang from the sofa." But too late. An awful, rasping voice at the door-way stilled the soft Kentucky tones and filled the room with dread.
"Then you've no time to lose, young man. It's high time somebody besides me set out to help him. That other young man you call Foster lies dead at the police-station,—killed byyourpistol, Miss Ray, and Mr. Stuyvesant goes to jail for it."
CHAPTER XVII.
In so far as human foresight could provide against the cabling to the States of tremendous tales that had little or no foundation, the commanding general had been most vigilant. The censorship established over the despatches of the correspondents had nipped many a sensation in the bud and insured to thousands of interested readers at home far more truthful reports of the situation at Manila than would have been the case had the press been given full swing.
Yet with Hong-Kong only sixty hours away, there was nothing to prevent their writing to and wiring from that cosmopolitan port, and here, at least, was a story that would set the States ablaze before it could be contradicted, and away it went, fast as the Esmeralda could speed it across the China Sea and the wires, with it, well-nigh girdle the globe.
A gallant young volunteer, Walter Foster of Ohio, serving in the regulars under the assumed name of Benton, foully murdered by Lieutenant Gerard Stuyvesant of New York! A love affair at the bottom of it all! Rivals for the hand of a fair army girl, daughter of a distinguished officer of the regular service! Lieutenant Stuyvesant under guard! Terrible wrath of the soldier's comrades! Lynching threatened! Speedy justice demanded! The maiden prostrated! Identification of the victim by Miss Zenobia Perkins, Vice-President and Accredited Representative for the Philippine Islands of the Society of Patriotic Daughters of America! Army circles in Manila stirred to the bottom! etc., etc.
Joyous reading this for friends and kindred in the far-distant States! Admirable exhibit of journalistic enterprise! The Hong Kong papers coming over in course of another week were full of it, and of appropriate comment on the remarkable depravity of the American race, and Chicago journals, notably thePalladium, bristled with editorial explosions over the oft-repeated acts of outrage and brutality on part of the American officer to the friendless private in the American ranks.
And thousands of honest, well-meaning men and women, who had seen, year after year, lie after lie, one stupendous story after another, punctured, riddled, and proved a vicious and malignant slander, swallowed this latest one whole, and marvelled that the American officer could be the monster the paper proved him to be.
But one woman at last and at least was happy, perched now on a pinnacle of fame, and in the Patriotic Daughters of America as represented by their Vice-President and Accredited Representative in the Philippines, virtue and rectitude reigned triumphant. Zenobia Perkins was in her glory. Of all the citizens or soldiers of the United States in and about Manila, male or female, staff or supply, signal or hospital corps, Red Cross or crossed cannon, rifles, or sabres, this indomitable woman was now the most sought after—the most in demand. Her identification of the dead man had been positive and complete.
"I suspected instantly," she declared in presence of the assembled throng, "when I heard Lieutenant Stuyvesant had shot a soldier, just who it might be. I remembered the young man who disappeared from the train before we got to Oakland. I suspected him the moment the corporal told me about the mysterious young man trying to see Miss Ray. I had my carriage chase right after him to the Nozaleda and caught him, half-running, half-staggering, and I took him driving until he got ca-amed down and told him he needn't worry any more. He was among friends at last, and the P. D. A.'s would take care of him and guard his secret and see him done right by. Oh, yes, I did! We weren't going to see an innocent boy shot as a deserter when he didn't know what he was doing. He wouldn't admit at first that he was Walter Foster at all, but at last, when he saw I was sure it was him, he just broke right down and as much as owned right up. He said he'd been slugged or sand-bagged three weeks before and robbed of money and of papers of value that he needed to help him in his trouble. He asked me what steps could be taken to help a poor fellow accused of desertion. He didn't dare say anything to any of the officers' cause the men he trusted at all—one or two well-educated young fellows like himself—found out that he'd be shot if found guilty. The only thing he could do was make a good record for himself in the infantry, and having done that he could later on hope for mercy. He asked a heap of questions, and I just told him to keep a stiff upper lip and we'd see him through, and he plucked up courage and said he believed he'd be able to have hope again;—at all events he'd go on duty right off. When I asked him how he dared go to Colonel Brent's, where at any time Lieutenant Ray might recognize him, he said he neverdidexcept when he knew Lieutenant Ray was out of the way. Then I tried to get him to tell what he expected to gain by seeing Miss Ray, and he was confused and said he was so upset all over he really didn't know that he had been there so often. He thought if he could see her and tell her the whole story she could have influence enough to get him out of his scrape. He was going to tell me the whole story, but patrols and sentries were getting too thick, and he had to get somewhere to change his dress for roll-call, and I gave him my address and he was to come and see me in two days, and now he's killed, and it ain't for me to say why—or who did it."
Benton's murder was certainly the sensation of the week in Manila, for there were features connected with the case that made it still more perplexing, even mysterious.
Major Farquhar, who must have seen young Foster frequently at Fort Averill, had been sent to survey the harbor of Iloilo and could not be reached in time, but Dr. Frank, called in course of the day to identify the remains, long and carefully studied the calm, waxen features of the dead soldier, and said with earnest conviction:
"This is undoubtedly the young man who appeared at Colonel Brent's and whom I sought to question, but who seemed to take alarm at once and, with some confused apology, backed away. He was dressed very neatly in the best white drilling sack-coat and trousers as made in Manila, with a fine straw hat and white shoes and gloves, but he had a fuzzy beard all over his face then, and his manner was nervous and excitable. His eyes alone showed that he was unstrung, bodily and mentally. I set him down for a crank or some one just picking up from serious illness. The city is full of new-comers, and as yet no one knows how many strangers have recently come to town. I saw him only that once in a dim light, but am positive in this identification."
Two or three non-commissioned officers of Benton's regiment were examined. Their stories were concise and to the point. The young soldier had come with the recruits from San Francisco along late in August. He was quiet, well-mannered, attended strictly to his own business, and was eager to learn everything about his duties. They "sized him up" as a young man of education and good family who hadn't influence enough to get a commission and so had enlisted to win it. He had money, but no bad habits. He helped in the office with the regimental papers, and could have been excused from all duty and made clerk, but wouldn't be. He said he'd help whenever they wanted him, but he didn't wish to be excused from guard or drills or patrol or picket—said he wanted to learn all there was in it. Even the rough fellows in the ranks couldn't help liking him. He had a pleasant word for everybody that didn't bother him with questions. He made one or two acquaintances, but kept mostly to himself; never got any letters from America, but there were two from Hong Kong, perhaps more. If he wrote letters himself, he posted them in town. They never went with the company mail from thecuartel. Everybody seemed to know that Benton wasn't his own name, but that was nothing. The main thing queer about him was that he got a pass whenever he could and went by himself, most generally out to Paco, where the cavalry were, yet he said he didn't know anybody there. It was out Paco way on the Calzada Herran, close to the corner of the Singalon road, the patrol picked him up with his head laid open, and he'd been flighty pretty much ever since and troubled about being robbed. Seemed all right again, however, when reporting for duty, and perfectly sane and straight then.
Two very bright young soldiers, Clark and Hunter, were called in for their statements. They, too, had enlisted in a spirit of patriotism and desire for adventure; never knew Benton till the voyage was nearly over, then they seemed to drift together, as it were, and kept up their friendship after reaching Manila. Benton was not his real name, and he was not a graduate of any American college. He had been educated abroad and spoke French and German. No, they did not know what university he attended. He was frank and pleasant so long as nobody tried to probe into his past; never heard him mention Lieutenant Stuyvesant. All three of them, Benton, Clarke, and Hunter, had observed that young officer during the month as he drove by barracks, sometimes with the general, sometimes alone, but they did not know his name, and nothing indicated that Benton had any feeling against him or that he had seen him. They admitted having conveyed the idea to comrades that they knew more about Benton than they would tell, but it was a "bluff." Everybody was full of speculation and curiosity, and—well, just for the fun of the thing, they "let on," as they said, that they were in his confidence, but they weren't, leastwise to any extent. They knew he had money, knew he went off by himself, and warned him to keep a look out or he'd be held up and robbed some night.
The only thing of any importance they had to tell was that one day, just before his misfortune, Benton was on guard and posted as sentry over the big Krupps in the Spanish battery at the west end of the Calle San Luis. Clarke and Hunter had a kodak between them and a consuming desire to photograph those guns. The sentries previously posted there refused to let them come upon the parapet,—said it was "'gainst orders." Benton said that unless positive orders were given to him to that effect, he would not interfere. So they got a pass on the same day and Benton easily got that post,—men didn't usually want it, it was such a bother,—but, unluckily, with the post Benton got the very orders they dreaded. So when they would have made the attempt he had to say, "No." They came away crestfallen, and stumbled on two sailor-looking men who, from the shelter of a heavy stone revetment wall, were peering with odd excitement of manner at Benton, who was again marching up and down his narrow post, a very soldierly figure.
"That young feller drove you back, did he?" inquired one of them, a burly, thick-set, hulking man of middle height. "Puttin' on considerable airs, ain't he? What's he belong to?"
"—th Infantry," answered Clarke shortly, not liking the stranger's looks, words, or manner, and then pushed on; but the stranger followed, out of sight of the sentry now, and wanted to continue the conversation.
"Sure he ain't in the cavalry?" asked the same man.
"Cocksure!" was the blunt reply. "What's it to you, anyhow?"
"Oh, nothin'; thought I'd seen him before. Know his name?"
"Name's Benton, far as I know. Come on, Hunter," said Clarke, obviously unwilling to stay longer in such society, and little more was thought of it for the time being; but now the provost-marshal's assistant wished further particulars. Was there anything unusual about the questioner's teeth? And a hundred men looked up in surprise and suddenly rearoused interest.
"Yes, sir," said Clarke, "one tooth was missing, upper jaw, next the big eye-tooth;" and as the witness stood down the general and the questioning officer beamed on each other and smiled.
An adjournment was necessitated during the early afternoon. Lieutenant Ray's statement was desired, also that of Private Connelly of the artillery, and an effort had been made through the officers of the cavalry at Paco to find some of the recruits who were of the detachment now quite frequently referred to in that command as "the singed cats." But it transpired that most of them had been assigned to troops of their regiment not yet sent to Manila, only half the regiment being on duty—foot duty at that—in the Philippines. The only man among them who had travelled with Foster from Denver as far as Sacramento was the young recruit, Mellen. He was on outpost, but would be relieved and sent to Ermita as quickly as possible.
Connelly, said the surgeon at the Cuartel de Meysic, was too ill to be sent thither, unless on a matter of vital importance, and Sandy Ray, hastening from Maidie's bedside in response to a summons, was met by the tidings that a recess had been ordered, and that he would be sent for again when needed.
Everywhere in Malate, Ermita, Paco, and, for that matter, the barracks and quarters of Manila, the astonishing story was the topic of all tongues that day. Among the regulars by this time the tale of Foster's devotion to Maidie Ray was well known, while that of Stuyvesant's later but assiduous courtship was rapidly spreading.
Men spoke in murmurs and with sombre faces, and strove to talk lightly on other themes, but the tragedy, with all the honored names it involved, weighed heavily upon them. Stuyvesant came to them, to be sure, a total stranger, but Vinton had long known him, and that was enough. His name, his lineage, his high position socially, all united to throw discredit on the grave suspicion that attached to him. Yet, here they were, brought face to face, rivals for the hand of as lovely a girl as the army ever knew. It was even possible that Foster was the aggressor. Reilly's reluctant words gave proof that discussion of some kind had occurred, and Stuyvesant broke away and was apparently wrathful at being compelled to go back; then more words, longer detention; then a swift-running form, Stuyvesant's, away from the scene; then the fatal pistol; and against this chain of circumstances only the unsupported statement of the accused that he left that revolver on the table in the salon, left it where it was never afterwards seen. No wonder men shook their heads.
It was three in the afternoon when the examination was resumed. Meantime, from all over Manila came the correspondents, burning with zeal and impatience, for the Esmeralda was scheduled to leave at five, and a stony-hearted censor at the Ayuntamiento had turned down whole pages of thrilling "copy" that would cost three dollars a word to send to the States, but sell for thirty times as much when it got there.
"Despite the positive identification of the remains," wrote one inspired journalist, "by such an unimpeachable and intelligent woman as Zenobia Perkins, who attended the murdered lad after he was so severely burned upon the train,—despite the equally positive recognition by that eminent and distinguished surgeon, Dr. Frank, this military satrap and censor dares to say that not until the identity of the deceased is established to the satisfaction of the military authorities will the report be cabled. How long will the people of America submit to such tyrannical dictation?"
When the provost-marshal himself, with his assistants and Vinton and Stuyvesant, returned at three and found Zenobia the vortex of a storm of questioners, the centre of a circle of rapid-writing scribes, these latter could have sworn—did swear, some of them—that, far from expediting matters in order that a full report might be sent by the Esmeralda, the officials showed a provoking and exasperating disposition to prolong and delay them.
And even at this time and at this distance, with all his regard, personal and professional, for the official referred to, the present chronicler is unable entirely to refute the allegation.
Out in the street a score of carriages and as manyquilezandcarromattasstood waiting by the curb, and gallant Captain Taylor, of the Esmeralda, could have added gold by the hundred to his well-earned store would he but have promised to hold his ship until the court—not the tide—served. But an aide of the commanding general had driven to the ship towards two o'clock and said something to that able seaman,—no power of the press could tell what,—and all importunity as to delaying his departure there was but one reply,—
"Five sharp, and not a second later!"
It was after three—yes, long after—that witnesses of consequence came up for examination. Dr. Brick had got the floor and was pleadingpost-mortemat once. In this climate and under such conditions decomposition would be so rapid, said he, that "by tomorrow his own mother couldn't recognize him." But the provost-marshal drawled that he didn't see that further mutilation would promote the possibility of recognition, and Brick was set aside.
It was quarter to four when young Mellen was bidden to tell whether he knew, and what he knew of, the deceased, and all men hushed their very breath as the lad was conducted to the blanket-shrouded form under the overhanging gallery in the openpatio. The hospital steward slowly turned down the coverlet, and Mellen, well-nigh as pallid as the corpse, was bidden to look. Look he did, long and earnestly. The little weights that some one had placed on the eyelids were lifted; the soft hair had been neatly brushed; the lips were gently closed; the delicate, clear-cut features wore an expression of infinite peace and rest; and Mellen slowly turned and, facing the official group at the neighboring table, nodded.
"You think you recognize the deceased?" came the question. "If so, what was his name?"
"I think so, yes, sir. It's Foster—at least that's what I heard it was."
"Had you ever known him?—to speak to?"
"He was in the same detachment on the train. Don't know as I ever spoke to him, sir," was the answer.
"But you think you know him by sight? Where did you first notice him?"
"Think it was Ogden, sir. I didn't pay much attention before that. A man called Murray knew him and got some money from him. That's how I came to notice him. The rest of us hadn't any to speak of."
"Ever see him again to speak to or notice particularly after you left Ogden? Did he sit near you?" was the somewhat caustic query.
"No, sir, only just that once."
"But you are sure this is the man you saw at Ogden?"
Mellen turned uneasily, unhappily, and looked again into the still and placid face. That meeting was on a glaring day in June. This was a clouded afternoon in late October and nearly five months had slipped away. Yet he had heard the solemn story of murder and had never, up to now, imagined there could be a doubt. In mute patience the sleeping face seemed appealing to him to speak for it, to own it, to stand between it and the possibility of its being buried friendless, unrecognized.
"It's—it's him or his twin brother, sir," said Mellen.
"One question more. Had you heard before you came here who was killed?"
"Yes, sir. They said it was Foster."
And now, with pencils swiftly plying, several young civilians were edging to the door.
James Farnham was called, and a sturdy young man, with keen, weather-beaten face, stepped into the little open space before the table. Three fingers were gone from the hand he instinctively held up, as though expecting to be sworn. His testimony was decidedly a disappointment. Farnham said that he was brakeman of that train and would know some of that squad of recruits anywhere, but this one,—well, he remembered talking to one man at Ogden, a tall, fine-looking young feller something very like this one. This might have been him or it might not. He couldn't even be sure that this was one of the party. He really didn't know. But there was a chap called Murray that he'd remember easy enough anywhere.
And then it was after four and the race for the Esmeralda began. It was utterly unnecessary, said certain bystanders, to question any more members of the guard, but the provost-marshal did, and not until 4.30 did he deign to send for the most important witness of all, the brother of the young girl to whom the deceased had been so devotedly attached. They had not long to wait, for Sandy Ray happened to be almost at the door.
The throng seemed to take another long breath, and then to hold it as, the few preliminaries answered, Mr. Ray was bidden to look at the face of the deceased. Pale, composed, yet with infinite sadness of mien, the young officer, campaign hat in hand, stepped over to the trestle, and the steward again slowly withdrew the light covering, again exposing that placid face.
The afternoon sunshine was waning. The bright glare of the mid-day hours had given place within the enclosure to the softer, almost shadowy light of early eve. Ray had but just come in from the street without where the slanting sunbeams bursting through the clouds beat hot upon the dazzling walls, and his eyes had not yet become accustomed to the change. Reverently, pityingly, he bent and looked upon the features of the dead. An expression, first of incredulity, then of surprise, shot over his face.
He closed his eyes a second as though to give them strength for sterner test, and then, bending lower, once more looked; carefully studied the forehead, eyebrows, lashes, mouth, nose, and hair, then, straightening up, he slowly faced the waiting room and said,—
"I never set eyes on this man in my life before to-day."
CHAPTER XVIII.
To say that Mr. Ray's abrupt announcement was a surprise to the dense throng of listeners is putting it mildly. To say that it was received with incredulity on part of the soldiery, and concern, if not keen apprehension, by old friends of Sandy's father who were present, is but a faint description of the effect of the lad's emphatic statement.
To nine out of ten among the assembly the young officer was a total stranger. To more than nine out of ten the identification of the dead as Walter Foster, Maidie Ray's luckless lover, was already complete, and many men who have made up their minds are incensed at those who dare to differ from them.
True, Mr. Stuyvesant had said that the sentry, Number 6, did not remind him except in stature, form, and possibly in features, of the recruit he knew as Foster on the train. He did not speak like him. But, when closely questioned by the legal adviser of the provost-marshal's department—the officer who conducted most of the examination with much of the manner of a prosecuting attorney, Mr. Stuyvesant admitted that he had only seen Foster once to speak to, and that was at night in the dim light of the Sacramento station on what might be called the off-side of the train, where the shadows were heavy, and while the face of the young soldier was partially covered with a bandage. Yet Vinton attached importance to his aide-de-camp's opinion, and when Ray came out flat-footed, as it were, in support of Stuyvesant's views, the general was visibly gratified.
But, except for these very few, Ray had spoken to unbelieving ears. Sternly the military lawyer took him in hand and began to probe. No need to enter into details. In ten minutes the indignant young gentleman, who never in his life had told a lie, found himself the target of ten score of hostile eyes, some wrathful, some scornful, some contemptuous, some insolent, some only derisive, but all, save those of a few silently observant officers, threatening or at least inimical.
Claiming first that he knew Walter Foster well (and, indeed, it seemed to him he did, for his mother's letters to the Big Horn ranch had much to say of Maidie's civilian admirer, though Maidie herself could rarely be induced to speak of him), Ray was forced to admit that he had met him only twice or thrice during a brief and hurried visit to Fort Averill to see his loved ones before they moved to Fort Leavenworth, and then he owned he paid but little attention to the sighing swain. Questioned as to his opportunities of studying and observing Foster, Sandy had been constrained to say that he hadn't observed him closely at all. He "didn't want to—exactly." They first met, it seems, in saddle. The winter weather was glorious at Averill. They had a fine pack of hounds; coursing for jack-rabbit was their favorite sport, and, despite the fact that Foster had a beautiful and speedy horse, "his seat was so poor and his hand so jerky he never managed to get up to the front," said Sandy.
It was not brought out in evidence, but the fact was that Sandy could never be got to look on Foster with the faintest favor as a suitor for his sister's hand. A fellow who could neither ride, shoot, nor spar—whose accomplishments were solely of the carpet and perhaps the tennis-court—the boy had no use for. He and Maidie rode as though born to the saddle. He had seen Foster in an English riding-suit and English saddle and an attempt at the English seat, but decidedly without the deft English hand on his fretting hunter's mouth the one day that they appeared in field together, and the sight was too much for Sandy. That night at dinner, and the later dance, Foster's perfection of dress and manner only partially redeemed him in Sandy's eyes, and—well—really, that was about all he ever had seen of Foster.
Questioned as to his recollection of Foster's features, stature, etc., Sandy did his best, and only succeeded in portraying the deceased almost to the life. Except, he said, Foster had long, thick, curving eyelashes, and "this man hasn't"—but it was remembered that brows and lashes both were singed off in the fire. So that point failed. Questioned as to whether he realized that his description tallied closely with the appearance of the deceased, Sandy said that that all might be, but still "this isn't Foster." Questioned as to whether, if the deceased were again to have the color and action,—the life that Foster had a year ago,—might not the resemblance to Foster be complete?—Sandy simply "couldn't tell."
Nearly an hour was consumed in trying to convince him he must, or at least might, be mistaken, but to no purpose. He mentioned a card photograph of Foster in ranch costume that would convince the gentlemen, he thought, that there was no such very strong resemblance, and a note was written to Miss Porter asking her to find and send the picture in question. It came, a cabinet photo of a tall, slender, well-built young fellow with dark eyes and brows and thick, curving lashes and oval, attractive face, despite its boyishness, and nine men out of ten who saw and compared it with the face of the dead declared it looked as though it had been taken for the latter perhaps a year or so agone. Ray had hurt his own case, and, when excused to return to his sister's side, went forth into the gathering twilight stricken with the consciousness that he was believed to have lied in hopes of averting scandal from that sister's name.
And on the morrow with thatpost-mortem, so insisted on by Brick, no longer delayed, the dead again lay mutely awaiting the final action of the civil-military authorities, and to the surprise of the officers and guards, before going to the daily routine that kept him from early morn till late at night in his beleaguered office, Drayton came and bowed his gray head and gazed with sombre eyes into the sleeping features now before him.
A pinched and tired look was coming over the waxen face that had been so calm and placid, as though in utter weariness over this senseless delay. Drayton had been told of young Ray's almost astounding declaration, and officers of the law half expected him to make some adverse comment thereon, but he did not. Alert correspondents, amazed to see the corps commander at such a place and so far from the Ayuntamiento, surrounded him as he would have retaken his seat in his carriage, and clamored for something as coming from him in the way of an expression of opinion, which, with grave courtesy, the general declined to give, but could not prevent appearing a week later in a thousand papers and in a dozen different forms—ferried over to Hong Kong by the Shogun or some other ship, and cabled thence to waiting Christendom.
Drayton had his own reasons for wishing to see the remains, then Vinton, and later Ray, and as his movements were closely followed, the wits of the correspondents were sorely taxed. But the examination was to be resumed at nine. A rumor was running wild that Miss Ray herself was to be summoned to appear, and Drayton had to be dropped in favor of a more promising sensation.
It began with dreary surgical technicalities. The heavy bullet had traversed the ascending aorta "near its bifurcation," said Brick, who, though only an autopsical adjunct, was permitted to speak for his associates. Death, said he, had resulted from shock and was probably instantaneous. No other cause could be attributed. No other wound was discovered. No marks of scuffle except "some unimportant scratches" on the shoulder. The bullet was found to weigh exactly the same as those of the unexploded cartridges in poor Maidie's prized revolver, and though Brick would gladly have kept the floor and told very much more, the provost-marshal as gladly got rid of him, for, despite the unwillingness of the medical officers at the Cuartel de Meysic, Connelly had been trundled down to Ermita in a springy ambulance and was presently awaiting his turn.
The moment his coming was announced, Connelly was ushered in and Brick shut off short.
A nurse and doctor were with the sturdy little Irishman, and he needed but brief instruction as to what was wanted. Taken to the trestle and bidden to look upon the face of the deceased and say, if he could, who it was, Connelly looked long and earnestly, and then turned feebly but calmly to the attentive array.
"If it wasn't that this looks much thinner," said he, "I'd say it was a man who 'listed with our detachment at Denver last June, about the first week. The name was Foster. He disappeared somewhere between Sacramento and Oakland, and I never saw him again."
Questioned as to whether there was any mark by which the recruit could be known, Connelly said that he was present when Foster was physically examined, and he never saw a man with a whiter skin; there wasn't a mark on him anywhere then that he could remember. Bidden to tell what he knew of Foster, the young artilleryman was given a seat, and somewhat feebly proceeded. Foster was bound to enlist, he said, was of legal age and looked it; gave his full name, his home and business; said he owned a ranch down in New Mexico near Fort Averill; didn't know enough to go in for a commission and was determined to enlist and serve as a private soldier in the cavalry. He had good clothes and things that he put in a trunk and expressed back to Averill, keeping only a valise full of underwear, etc., but that was burned up on the car afterwards. Two days later, before they started for the West, a man who said his name was Murray came to the rendezvous and asked for Foster, who was then being drilled. A detachment was to start the next day, and anybody could see that Foster wasn't glad to welcome Murray by any means, but on that very evening Murray said that he too wished to enlist and go with his "friend." He squeezed through the physical examination somehow, and they took him along, though nobody liked his looks.
Then Connelly told what he could of the fire and of Foster's subsequent disappearance, also of Murray and Murray's misconduct. They asked Connelly about Lieutenant Stuyvesant, and here Connelly waxed almost eloquent, certainly enthusiastic, in Stuyvesant's praise. Somebody went so far, however, as to ask whether he had ever seen any manifestation of ill-will between Stuyvesant and Recruit Foster, whereat Connelly looked astonished, seemed to forget his fever, and to show something akin to indignation.
"No, indeed!" said he. There was nothing but good-will of the heartiest kind everywhere throughout the detachment except for that one blackguard, Murray. They all felt most grateful to the lieutenant, and so far as he knew they'd all do most anything for him, all except Murray, but he was a tough, he was a biter, and here the sick man feebly uplifted his hand and pointed to the bluish-purple marks at the base of the thumb.
"Murray did that," said Connelly simply. "He was more like a beast than a man."
But the examiners did not seem interested in Murray. General Vinton, who had again entered and was a close listener, and was observed to be studying the witness closely, presently beckoned to one of the doctors and said a word in undertone to him. The medico shook his head. There was a lull in the proceedings a moment. Connelly was too sick a man to be kept there long, and his doctor plainly showed his anxiety to get him away. The crowd too wanted him to go. He had told nothing especially new except that Murray and Foster were acquainted, and Murray enlisted because Foster had.
"Everybody" said by this time this must be Foster's body. What "everybody" wanted was to get Connelly out of the way now, then perhaps—anotherfever patient might be summoned, for they couldn't expect to keep those remains another day. There was widespread, if unspoken, hope among the score of correspondents that the provost-marshal would feel that he must summon Miss Ray.
But before the examiners could decide there came an unexpected scene. Vinton went over, bent, and whispered to the provost-marshal, who looked up, nodded, and glanced towards the witness, sitting flushed and heavy-eyed, but patient, across the room. Vinton was plainly asking something, and to the manifest displeasure of many of the crowd the little Irishman was again accosted.
"You say Murray was a biter and bit you so that the marks last to this day. Did you take note of any peculiarity in his teeth?"
"Yes, sir. One of 'em was gone near the front, right-hand side, next to the big yellow eye-tooth."
"Would that make a peculiar mark on human flesh?"
"Yes, sir," answered Connelly, holding up his hand again and showing the scar, now nearly five months old.
"Steward," said the officer placidly, "uncover the shoulder there and let Connelly look at the mark Dr. Brick referred to."
Connelly did. He studied the purplish discolorations in the milky skin, and excitement, not altogether febrile, suddenly became manifest in his hot, flushed face. Then he held forth one hand, palm uppermost, eagerly compared the ugly scars at the base of the thumb with the faint marks on the broad, smooth shoulder, and turned back to the darkened room. With hand uplifted he cried:
"Major,"—and now he was trembling with mingled weakness and eagerness,—"I knew that man Murray was following this young feller to squeeze money out of him, and when he couldn't get it by threats, he tried by force. He's followed him clear to Manila, and that's his mark sure's this is!—sure's there's a God in heaven!"
CHAPTER XIX.
There came a time of something more than anxiety and worry for all who knew Gerard Stuyvesant,—for those who loved Marion Ray,—and Sandy was a sorrow-laden man. Vinton could not stand between his favorite aide-de-camp and the accusation laid at his door. Frank and his most gifted fellow-surgeons were powerless to prevent the relapse that came to Marion and bore her so close to the portals of the great beyond that there were days and nights when the blithe spirit seemed flitting away from its fragile tenement, and November was half gone before the crisis was so far past that recovery could be pronounced only a question of time. Oh, the strain of those long, long, sleepless days of watching, waiting, hoping, praying, yet days wherein the watchers could nurse and help andact. Oh, the blackness, the misery of the nights of watching, waiting in helplessness, well-nigh in despair, for the coming of the next "cable!" the consciousness of utter impotence to help or to do! the realization that a priceless life is ebbing away, while they who gave it—they to whom it is so infinitely precious—are at the very opposite ends of the earth! Oh, the tremulous opening of those fateful messages, the breathless reading of the cipher, the awful suspense of the search through Cable Code pages that dance and swim before the straining eyes! Oh, the meek acceptance of still further suspense! the almost piteous thankfulness that all is not yet lost, that hope is not yet abandoned! Strong men break down and add years to those they have lived. Gentle women sway and totter at last until relief comes to them through God-given tears.
In a fever-stricken camp in Southern swamplands a father waked night after night, walking the hospitals where his brave lads lay moaning, seeing in their burning misery, hearing in their last sigh, the sufferings of a beloved child. By the bedside of her youngest, her baby boy as she would ever call the lad, who lay there in delirium, knelt a mother who, as she nursed and soothed this one, prayed without ceasing for that other, that beloved daughter for whom the Death Angel crouched and waited under the tropic skies of the far Philippines. Ah, there were suffering and distress attendant on that strange, eventful epoch in the nation's history that even the press said nothing about, and that those who knew it speak of only in deep solemnity and awe to-day. It was mid-November before they dared to hope. It was December when once again Maid Marion was lifted to her lounging-chair overlooking the Bagumbayan, and little by little began picking up once more the threads that were so nearly severed for all time, and as health and strength slowly returned, hearing the tidings of the busy, bustling world about her.
Others too had known anxiety as sore as that which had so lined the face of Colonel Ray and trebled the silver in the soft hair of Marion, his wife. Well-nigh distracted, a mother sped across the continent to the Pacific, there to await the coming of her son's remains.
From the night of Walter Foster's disappearance at Carquinez no word of his existence came to give her hope, no trace of his movements until, late in August, there was brought to her the cabled message:
"Alive, well, but in trouble. Have written."
"Alive, well, but in trouble. Have written."
And this was headed Yokohama. Not until October did that longed-for, prayed-for letter come,—a selfish letter, since it gave no really adequate excuse for the long weeks of silence, and only told that the boy had been in hiding, almost in terror of his life. While still dazed by the shock of the fire and smarting from his burns, wrote Walter, he had wandered from the cars at Port Costa. He had encountered "most uncongenial persons," he said, among the recruits, and never realizing that it was desertion, war-time desertion at that, had determined to get back to Sacramento and join some other command. Yes. There was another reason, but—one "mother couldn't appreciate." Unknown to all but one of his comrades on the train, he had abundant money, realized from the sale of horses and cattle at the ranch. It was in a buckskin belt about his waist, and this money bought him "friends" who took him by water to Sacramento, found him secret lodgings, procured suitable clothing, and later spirited him off to San Francisco.
But these money-bought friends showed the cloven hoof, threatened to give him over to the military authorities to be tried for his life unless he would pay a heavy sum. They had him virtually a prisoner. He could only stir abroad at night, and then in company with his jailers.
There was a man, he wrote, who had a grudge against him, a man discharged from the ranch, who followed him to Denver and enlisted in the same party, a man he was most anxious to get rid of, and the first thing he knew that fellow, who, he supposed, had gone on to Manila, turned up in disguise and joined forces with his tormentors. That drove him to desperation, nerved him to one sublime effort, and one night he broke away and ran. He was fleet of foot, they were heavy with drink, and he dodged them among the wharves and piers, took refuge on a coast steamer, and found himself two days later at Portland.
Here he bethought him of an old friend, and succeeded in finding a man he well knew he could trust, despite his mother's old dislike for him, a man who knew his whole past, of his desertion, of his danger,—a man who was himself about enlisting for service in the Philippines, and who persuaded him that his surest way to win exemption from punishment was to hasten after the detachment, beat it, if possible, to Manila, and join it there at his own expense.
He still had some hundreds left. They went to San Francisco, where Walter took steamer at once for Honolulu to await there the coming of the recruit detachment. The infantry finally came, his friend with them, but no sign of more cavalry. To Walter's dismay he had seen among the passengers landed from the Doric the disguised rough whom, as Sackett, he had so unfavorably known before, who as Murray had followed him into the army. It would never do to fall into his clutches again: the man would betray him instantly. Walter kept in hiding until he heard that Sackett was accused of stabbing a staff officer of General Vinton and had fled the island.
Later, when the next troop-ship came, bringing his friend with it, he again took counsel. As the lad fully admitted, his friend was the same old chum of Freiburg days—the friend to whom his parents had so much objected. The fortunes of war had thrown them together, Willard as impecunious as ever, and the Damon and Pythias, the Orestes and Pylades, the two Ajaxes of the old days were in close and intimate touch once more, Damon, as of old, the banker for the twain. The troop-ships were to proceed as soon as coaled. There were reasons now why Walter wished to stay in Honolulu, but Willard urged his moving at once on to Hong Kong and there awaiting the result of his negotiations at Manila. At Hong Kong it was his hope to receive the word "Come over. All is well," and, finally, as his funds would soon run out, he closed his letter with the request that his mother cable him five hundred dollars through the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank.
The money she cabled at once, then in dread she had wired Colonel Martindale, who was gadding about with old army chums when most she needed him at home, and that gentleman, with a sigh, again went sisterward, saying he knew the boy was sure to turn up to torment him, and wondering what on earth young Hopeful had done now. He looked grave enough when he read the letter, asked for time to communicate confidentially with a chum at Washington, and was awaiting reply when all on a sudden the papers came out with this startling despatch telling of the murder of Private Walter Foster while on his post as sentry at Manila, and then came weeks of woe.
Despite Drayton's cable from Manila that the identification of the remains was not conclusive to him, at least, Mrs. Foster was convinced that the murdered lad was her only boy, and all because of that heartless flirt, that designing—that demoniac army girl who had bewitched him and then brought his blood upon her own head.
"If it isn't Walter who lies there slain by assassin rival, the innocent victim ofthat creature'shideous vanity, would I not have heard from him? Do you suppose my blessed boy would notinstantlyhave cabled to tell me he was alive if he wasn't dead?" And, indeed, that was a hard question to answer.
And so the remains of Private Willard Benton, that had been viewed by many a genuinely sorrowing comrade and stowed away with solemn military honors in a vault at Paco Cemetery, were sealed up as best they could do it at Manila, and, though unconvinced as to their identity despite the convictions of others in authority, the commanding general yielded to cables from the War Department and ordered their shipment to San Francisco. They were out of sight of all signals from Corregidor when Martindale's cable came suggesting search for Private Benton Willard.
Zenobia Perkins sniffed contemptuously and scoffed malignantly when told that the doubting Thomases were gaining ground and numbers, that though Mr. Stuyvesant might be brought to trial for killing a man, it would not be for killing Foster until more was ascertained regarding the actual victim. Private Connelly, recovered from his fever, was forever hunting up Farnham, the brakeman, and devising schemes for the capture of that blackguard Murray. Day and night, he maintained that Murray was the man who had accosted Clarke and Hunter at the battery, that it was probably he who, with his pals, had waylaid and robbed the lone recruit returning from his quest in East Paco, that it was he who must have struggled with him again before firing the fatal shot; but not a trace of Murray or his sailor mates could the secret service agents find, and matters were in this most unsatisfactory state when at the end of November came the Queen of the Fleet, despatched several weeks before to fetch along the troops "sidetracked" at Honolulu, just as the commanding general and his chief surgeon were in consultation as to what on earth to do with Zenobia Perkins—the woman had become a public nuisance.
It seems that the Patriotic Daughters of America were now out of patience and the vice-president out of funds. It seemed that her brief ascendancy had carried the lady to such an altitude as to dizzy her brain and rob her of all sense of proportion. It seems that the surgeons in charge of three hospitals had complained of her meddling, that colonels of several regiments had discovered her to be the author of letters to the home papers setting forth that neglect, abuse, and starvation were driving their men to desertion or the grave. It seems that the Red Cross had protested against her as the originator of malignant stories at their expense, and it was evidently high time to get rid of her, yet how could they if that case was to be tried? Zenobia Perkins knew they could not and conducted herself accordingly. She came this day to the Ayuntamiento to demand pay for what she termed her long detention at Manila.
"You compel me to remain against my will because I'm an indispensable witness," said she to the saturnine adjutant-general, beyond whom she never now succeeded in passing. She was volubly berating him, to his grim amusement, when the lattice doors from the corridor swung open and two officers entered.
For nearly two minutes they stood waiting for a break in her tempestuous flow of words, but as none came, the senior impatiently stepped forward and the adjutant-general, looking up, sprang from his chair just as the chief himself came hurrying out from thesanctum sanctorumand greeted the newcomers with cordially clasping hands. The lady too had risen. This was another of those stuck-up star-wearers who at San Francisco as much as told her she was a nuisance, and who wouldn't send her by transport to Manila. Yet here she was in spite of them all, and the most important woman on the island! Zenobia's face was flushed with triumph that the star-wearer should be made to feel and see before she would consent to leave the room.
"Well, I shall have to interrupt you gentlemen," said she, "formybusiness won't keep if you propose to keepme. I want to know right here and now, General Drayton, whether I'm to get my pay or not; if not, I don't propose to wait another day in Manila, and you can get out of the scrape the best way you know how. No one here but me could swear that young man Foster was dead, and you know it."
"You've sworn to what isn't so, madame," interposed the new arrival placidly. "Here's that young man Foster!" and as he spoke the lattice doors again swung open, and, very pale, a tall youth in civilian dress was ushered in, at sight of whom Major Farquhar fairly shouted.
"How'd I get him?" said the new-comer five minutes later. "Found him aboard the Coptic when she met us as we were pulling out from Honolulu. He was going back to the States. Left Hong Kong before the story was published. Didn't want to come, of course, but had to."
"Wasn't there time to write his mother? They surely would have cabled, and the Coptic must have got into San Francisco a week ago."
"Certainly! Letter was sent right on by the steamer, addressed to Cincinnati."
"O Lord!" said Drayton. "And she was at 'Frisco all the time. Colonel," he added to his chief-of-staff, "what's the first transport home?"
"Zealandia, sir; to-morrow."
"Sorry for the Zealandia, but Zenobia must go with her."
CHAPTER XX.
Of course we had not heard the last of her. Honolulu correspondents of the press had little to write of in those days, but made their little long, and Zenobia's stories were the biggest things yet brought from Manila. Those stories were seven days getting from Honolulu to San Francisco, which was less than half the time it took their author to bring them to listening ears. Anybody aboard the Zealandia could have told the scribes the lady was a fabricator of the first magnitude, but what live correspondent wants to have a good story spoiled? In just twenty-seven days from that on which Zenobia bade farewell to Manila her winged words were flashed all over the States, and by thousands were the stones swallowed that death, disease, pestilence and famine, bribery and corruption, vice and debauchery, desertion and demoralization ran riot in the army at Manila, all due to the incapacity, if not actual complicity, of officers in high position. But mercifully were they spared the knowledge of these astonishing facts until the papers themselves began to reach the Eighth Corps some ten weeks after Zenobia had left it to its fate, and by that time every fellow had his hands full, for the long-looked-for outbreak had come at last, and the long, thin Yankee fighting line was too busy making history to waste ink or temper in denying yarns that, after all, were soon forgotten.
Then, too, we had been hearing stories that could not be denied right there in the southern suburbs, and having excitement that needed no Zenobia to enhance it. To begin with, Walter Foster's tale was of itself of vivid interest, and, though only the general and Farquhar and Ray actually heard it, and only two or possibly three staff officers were supposed to see it after it had been reduced to writing, every steamer and transport now was bringing officers' families, and men must tell their wives something once in a while, otherwise they might never know whatisgoing on and so will believe all manner of things that are not.
Walter Foster's mother learned by cable that the remains she awaited, and that reached port almost the day she got the despatch, were not those of her only son, but of one who had practically died for him. And even in the joy of that supreme moment the woman in her turned, after all, in pity to weep for the motherless lad who had been her boy's warmest friend in his hours of doubt and darkness and despair.
A weak vessel was "Wally," as Farquhar had intimated, and so easily cowed and daunted that in the dread of the punishment accorded the deserter he had skulked in disguise at Hong Kong, leaving all the burden of scouting, pleading, and planning for him to Willard, his old-time chum, who had even less knowledge and experience of army official life than himself. Willard's early letters to Hong Kong gave Foster little hope, for at first the only people the recruit could "sound" were private soldiers like himself. Then Foster read of the arrival of the Sacramento at Manila, of the presence there of Maidie Ray, and then he wrote urging his quondam chum to endeavor to see her, to tell her of his desperate straits, to implore her to exert influence to get him pardoned, and, in order that she might know that his envoy was duly accredited, he sent Willard his chief treasure, that littlecarte-de-visite, together with a few imploring lines.
Then not a word came from Willard for three mortal weeks, but Foster's daily visits to the bank were at last rewarded by a despatch from home bidding him return at once by first steamer, sending him abundant means, and assuring him all would be well.
And when the news of his own murder was published in the Hong Kong papers, without the faintest intimation to the officials of the bank as to his intentions, he was homeward bound, and never heard a word of it all until recognized by an officer aboard the Queen as the Coptic floated into Honolulu Harbor. There he was arrested and turned back.
Among "Billy Benton's" few effects no letters, no such picture, had been found, nothing, in fact, to connect him with Foster. Colonel Brent knew what had become of thecarte-de-visite, but—how happened it in other hands than those of Benton? That too was not long to be a mystery.
One day in late December a forlorn-looking fellow begged a drink of the bartender at the Alhambra on the Escolta—said he was out of money, deserted by his friends, and took occasion to remind the dispenser of fluid refreshment that a few weeks ago when he had funds and friends both he had spent many a dollar there. The bartender waved him away.
"Awe, give the feller a drink," said boys in blue, in the largeness of their nature and the language of the ranks. "What'll you take, Johnny? Have one with us," and one of the managers hastened over and whispered to some of the flannel-shirted squad, but to no purpose.
The "boys" were bent on benevolence, and "beat" though he might be, the gaunt stranger was made welcome, shared their meat and drink, and, growing speedily confidential in his cups, told them that he could tell a tale some folks would pay well to hear, and then proceeded to stiffen out in a fit.
This brought to mind the event on the Bagumbayan, and somebody said it was "the same feller if not the same fit," and it wouldn't do to leave him there. They took him along in their cab and across to their barracks by the Puente Colgante, and a doctor ministered to him, for it was plain the poor fellow was in sore plight, and a few days later a story worth the telling was going the rounds. The good chaplain of the Californians had heard his partial confession and urged him to tell the whole truth, and that night the last vestige of the crumbling case against Gerard Stuyvesant came tumbling to earth, and Connelly, from the Cuartel de Meisic, nearly ran his sturdy legs off to find Farnham and tell him the tale.
"My real name," said the broken man, "is of no consequence to anybody. I soldiered nearly ten years ago in the Seventh Cavalry, but that fight at Wounded Knee was too much for my nerve, and the boys made life a burden to me afterwards. I 'took on' in another regiment after I skipped from the Seventh, but luck was against me. We were sent to Fort Meade, and there was a gambler in Deadwood, Sackett by name, who had been a few months in the Seventh, but got bob-tailed out for some dirty work, and he knew me at once and swore he'd give me away if I didn't steer fellows up against his game after pay-day. I had to do it, but Captain Ray got onto it all and broke up the scheme and ran Sackett off the reservation, and then he blew on me and I had to quit again. He shot a man over cards, for he was a devil when in drink, and had to clear out, and we met again in Denver. 'Each could give the other away by that time,' said he, and so we joined partnership."
The rest was soon told. Sackett got a job on young Foster's ranch and fell into some further trouble. But when the war came all of them were enlisted, Foster and Sackett in the regulars and he in the First Colorado, but they discharged him at Manila because he had fits, and that gave him a good deal of money for a few days, travel pay home, and all that. Then who should turn up but Sackett with "money to burn" and a scheme to make more. They hired a room in Ermita, and next thing he knew Sackett and some sailor men held up and robbed a soldier, and Sackett was in a tearing rage because no money-belt was found on him. They only got some letters, that little photograph, and perhaps forty dollars "Mex." The photograph he recognized at once,—his former captain's daughter,—and he begged for it and kept it about him until one evening he was taken with another fit, and when he came to the picture was gone.
That night he found Sackett nearly crazy drunk at their lodgings in Ermita. They had a Filipino boy to wait on them then, and Sackett had told the boy where he could find money and jewelry while the family were at dinner around at Colonel Brent's. The boy was willing enough; he was an expert. But he came back scared through; said that the soldiers were close after him. He had some jewelry and a pretty revolver. Sackett told him to keep the jewelry, but took the watch and pistol, and that night the sentries and patrols were searching everywhere, and Sackett and the sailors said they must get away somehow. They drank some more, and finally thought they had a good chance just after the patrol left, and the sentry was talking to an officer on the Calle Real.
They sneaked downstairs and out into the Faura, and there Sackett ran right into the soldier's arms. There was a short, terrible battle, the soldier against Sackett and his sailor friend. The sailor got the sentry's gun away, and Sackett and he wrestled as far as the corner, when there was a shot; the soldier dropped all in a heap and Sackett and the sailor ran for their lives around the corner,—the last he had ever seen or heard of them up to this moment.
So that was how poor Maidie's pistol happened to be picked up on the Calle Real and why one or two assertive officers lately connected with the provost-marshal's and secret-service department concluded that it might be well for them to try regimental duty awhile. That was how it happened, too, that Lieutenant Stuyvesant was prevailed on to take a short leave and run over to Hong Kong. But he came back in a hurry, for there was need of every man and trouble imminent "at the front."
The dawn of that memorable February day had come that saw Manila girdled by the flame of forty thousand rifles and shrouded in the smoke that drifted from the burning roofs of outlying villages from whose walls, windows, and church towers the insurgent islanders had poured their pitiless fire upon the ranks of the American soldiery.
In front of a stone-walled enclosure bordering the principal street in an eastward suburb two or three officers were in earnest consultation. From the ambulance close at hand the attendants were carefully lifting some sorely wounded men. Up the street farther east several little parties coming slowly, haltingly from the front, told that the incessant crash and rattle of musketry in that direction was no merefeu-de-joie, while every now and then the angry spat of the steel-clad Mauser on the stony road, the whiz and whirr about the ears of the few who for duty's sake or that of example held their ground in the highway, gave evidence that the Tagal marksmen had their eyes on every visible group of Americans.
In the side streets at right angles to the main thoroughfare reserve battalions were crouching, sheltered from the leaden storm, and awaiting the longed-for order to advance and sweep the field at the front. From the grim, gray walls of the great church and convent, which for weeks had been strictly guarded by order of the American generals against all possible intrusion or desecration on part of their men, came frequent flash and report and deadly missile aimed at the helpless wounded, the hurrying ambulances, even at a symbol as sacred as that which towered above its altars—the blood-red cross of Geneva.
It was the Tagal's return for the honor and care and consideration shown the Church of Rome. As another ambulance came swiftly to the spot, its driver swayed, clasped his hands upon his breast, and, with the blood gushing from his mouth, toppled forward into the arms of the hospital attendants. It was more than flesh and blood or the brigade commander could stand.
"Burn that church!" was the stern order as the general spurred on to the front, and a score of soldiers, leaping from behind the stone walls, dashed at the barricaded doors. A young staff officer, galloping down the road, reined in at sight of the little party and whirled about by the general's side.
"It's perfectly true, sir," said he. "Right across the bridge in front of the block-house you can hear him plainly. It's a white man giving orders to the Filipinos." The general nodded.
"We'll get him presently. Do they understand the orders on the left?"
"Everywhere, sir. All are ready and eager," and even the native pony ridden by the aide seemed quivering with excitement as, horse and rider, they fell back and joined the two officers following their chief.
"Hot in front, Stuyvie?" queried the first in undertone, as a Mauser zipped between their heads to the detriment of confidential talk, and a great burst of cheers broke from the blue line crouching just ahead across the open field. "Why, d—n it, man, you're hit now!"
"Hush!" answered Stuyvesant imploringly, as he pressed a gauntleted hand to his side. "Don't let the general know. I want to join Vinton in a moment. It's only a tear along the skin." But blood was soaking through the serge of his blue sack-coat and streaking the loose folds of his riding-breeches, and the bright color in his clear skin was giving way to pallor.
"Tear, indeed! Here! Quick, orderly! Help me there on the other side!" and the captain sprang from saddle. A soldier leaped forward, turning loose his pony, and as the general, with only one aide and orderly, rode on into the smoke-cloud overhanging the line, Gerard Stuyvesant, fainting, slid forward into the arms of his faithful friends.
A few hours later, "lined up" along the river-bank, a great regiment from the far West, panting and exultant, stood resting on its arms and looking back over the field traversed in its first grand charge. Here, there, everywhere it was strewn with insurgent dead and sorely wounded. Here, there, and everywhere men in American blue were flitting about from group to group, tendering canteens of cold water to the wounded, friend and enemy alike.
Far back towards the dusty highway where the ambulances were hurrying, and close to the abutments of a massive stone bridge that crossed a tributary of the Pasig, three officers, a surgeon, and half-a-dozen soldiers were grouped about a prostrate form in the pale blue uniform, with the gold embroidery and broad stripes of a Filipino captain, but the face was ghastly white, the language ghastly Anglo-Saxon.
With the blood welling from a shothole in his broad, burly chest and the seal of death already settling on his ashen brow, he was scowling up into the half-compassionate, half-contemptuous faces about him. Here lay the "Capitan Americano" of whom the Tagal soldiers had been boasting for a month—a deserter from the army of the United States, a commissioned officer in the ranks of Aguinaldo, shot to death in his first battle in sight of some who had seen and known him "in the blue."
Lieutenant Stuyvesant, revived by a long pull at the doctor's flask, his bleeding stanched, had again pressed forward to take his part in the fight, but now lay back in the low Victoria that the men had run forward from the village, and looked down upon the man who in bitter wrath and hatred had vowed long months before to have his heart's blood,—the man who had so nearly done him to death in Honolulu. Even now in Sackett's dying eyes something of the same brutal rage mingled with the instant gleam of recognition that for a moment flashed across his distorted features. It seemed retribution indeed that his last conscious glance should fall upon the living face of the man to whom he owed his rescue from a fearful death that night in far-away Nevada.
But, badly as he was whipped that brilliant Sunday, "Johnny Filipino" had the wit to note that Uncle Sam had hardly a handful of cavalry and nowhere near enough men to follow up the advantages, and hence the long campaign of minor affairs that had to follow. In that campaign Sandy Ray was far too busy at the front to know very much of what was going on at the rear in Manila. He listened with little sympathy to Farquhar's brief disposition of poor Foster's case. "They could remove the desertion and give him a commission, but they couldn't make Wally a soldier. He went home when the fighting had hardly begun." Somebody was mean enough to say if he hadn't his mother would have come for him.
There was no question as to the identity of the soldier who died in Filipino uniform. Not only did Stuyvesant recognize him, but so did Ray and Trooper Mellen, and Connelly, fetched over from the north side to make assurance doubly sure. It was Sackett-Murray, gambler, horse-thief, house-robber, deserter, biter, murderer, and double-dyed traitor. He had fled to the insurgents in dread of discovery and death at the hands of Benton's comrades.
And perhaps it was just as well. Foster knew of his hapless end before he took steamer homeward; knew, too, of Stuyvesant's wound, and—possibly it had something to do with his departure—of the disposition made of that fortunately wounded officer. Miss Ray, it seems, was regularly on duty now, with other Red Cross nurses, and Stuyvesant went to the "First Reserve" and stayed there a whole week, and even Dr. Wells came and smiled on him, and Miss Porter beamed, and still he was not happy—for Maidie came not. She was busy as she could be at the farther end of the other wards.
And so Stuyvesant grew impatient of nursing, declared he was well, and still was far from happy, for at that time Foster was still hovering about the premises, and Stuyvesant could see only one possible explanation for that. They moved him back to his breezy quarters at Malate. But presently a trap was sprung, mainly through Mrs. Brent's complicity, for once or twice a week it was Maidie's custom to go to her old friend's roof for rest and tea. And one evening, seems to me it was Valentine's Day, just before sunset, they were in the veranda,—the colonel and his kindly wife,—while Maid Marion the Second was in her own room donning a dainty gown for change from the Red Cross uniform, when a carriage whirled up to the entrance underneath, and Mrs. Brent, leaning over the rail, smiled on its sole occupant and nodded reassuringly.
Stuyvesant came up slowly, looking not too robust, and said it was awfully good of Mrs. Brent to take pity on his loneliness and have him round to tea. Other nice women, younger, more attractive personally than Mrs. Brent, had likewise bidden him to tea just so soon as he felt able, but Stuyvesant swore to himself he couldn't be able and wouldn't if he could. Yet when Mrs. Brent said "Come," he went, though never hoping to see Marion, whom he believed to be engrossed in duties at the First Reserve, and on the verge of announcement of her engagement to "that young man Foster."
Presently Brent said if Stuyvesant had no objection he'd take his trap and drive overIntra murosand get the news from MacArthur's front,—for Mac was hammering at the insurgent lines about Caloocan,—and Stuyvesant had no objection whatever. Whereupon Mrs. Brent took occasion to say in the most casual way in the world:
"Oh, you might send a line to Colonel Martindale, dear. You know Mr. Foster goes home by the Sonoma—oh, hadn't you heard of it, Mr. Stuyvesant? Oh, dear, yes. He's been ready to go ever since the fighting began, but there was no boat."
And then she too left Stuyvesant,—left him with the New YorkMoonbottom topmost in his hand and a sensation as of wheels in his head. She proceeded, furthermore, to order tea on the back gallery and Maidie to the front. But tea was ready long before Maidie.
Far out at the lines of San Pedro Macati Dyer's guns had sighted swarms of rebels up the Pasig, and with placid and methodical precision were sending shrapnel in that direction and dull, booming concussions in the other. An engagement of some kind was on at San Pedro, and Stuyvesant twitched with nervous longing to get there, despite the doctors, and sat wondering was another engagement off at Manila. Just what to do he had not decided. TheMoonand his senses were still upside-down when Sing came in with the transferred tea things and Mrs. Brent with the last thing Stuyvesant was thinking to see—Maid Marion, all smiles, congratulation, and cool organdie.
Ten minutes' time in which to compose herself gives a girl far too great an advantage under such circumstances.
"I—I'm glad to see you," said Stuyvesant helplessly. "I thought you were wearing yourself out at nursing."
"Oh, it agrees with me," responded Maidie blithely.
"I suppose it must. You certainly look so."
"Merci du compliment, Monsieur," smiled Miss Ray, with sparkling eyes and the prettiest of courtesies. She certainly did look remarkably well.
It was time for Stuyvesant to be seated again, but he hovered there about that tea-table, for Mrs. Brent made the totally unnecessary announcement that she would go in search of the spoons.
"You had no time—I suppose—to look in on anybody but your assigned vict—patients, I mean," hazarded Stuyvesant, weakening his tentative by palpable display of sense of injury.
"Well, you were usually asleep when I cal—inquired, I mean. One or two lumps, Mr. Stuyvesant?" And the dainty little white hand hovered over the sugar-bowl.
"You usually chose such times, I fancy. One lump, thanks." There was another, not of sugar, in his throat and he knew it, and his fine blue eyes and thin, sad face were pathetic enough to move any woman's heart had not Miss Ray been so concerned about the tea.
"You would have been able to return to duty days ago," said she, tendering the steaming cup and obviously ignoring his remark, "had you come right to hospital as Dr. Shiels directed, instead of scampering out to the front again. You thought more of the brevet, of course, than the gash. What a mercy it glanced on the rib! Only—such wounds are ever so much harder to stanch and dress."
"You—knew about it, then?" he asked with reviving hope.
"Of course. Weallknew," responded Miss Ray, well aware of the fact that he would have been unaccountably and infinitely happier had it been she alone. "That is our profession. But about the brevet. Surely you ought to be pleased. Captain in your first engagement!"
"Oh, it's only a recommendation," he answered, "and may be as far away as—any other engagement—of mine, that is." And in saying it poor Stuyvesant realized it was an asinine thing. So, alack, did she! An instant agone she was biting her pretty red lips for letting the word escape her, but his fatuity gave her all the advantage in spite of herself. It was the play to see nothing that called for reply in his allusion. So there was none.