"My hair doesn't come off, dearest," objected Mrs. Dalziel mildly, which made us laugh; and that did everybody good.
"I bet Lady Peggy isn't afraid worth a cent," Tony remarked.
"Rather not!" said I. "I wouldn't go away—no, not if you setmiceat me! Even if Mrs. Dalziel and Milly went, I'd stay on and volunteer as a nurse. I can do first aid, and I don't mind the sight of blood if there isn't too much; though, of course, it would be better if it were a peaceful green or blue instead of that terrifying red."
Tony took us in a taxi to the Paso del Norte, a big hotel good enough for New York or London; and even in that short spin through the streets, we saw the newspaper "extras" being hawked about by yelling boys who waved the papers to show off their huge scarlet headlines. The marble entrance hall of the hotel was crowded with people who had just bought these extras, and were reading aloud tit-bits of "scare" news to each other, or discussing the situation in groups. Some looked very Spanish, and Tony said they were refugees, from the heart of Mexico; but the women seemed to have had plenty of time to sort out and pack their prettiest clothes before they fled.
That night Eagle March was asked to dine with us at the hotel. He sat between Mrs. Dalziel and Milly, and more than once I caught his eyes resting on me thoughtfully, almost wistfully. I wondered if there were something that he was particularly anxious to say, but Milly kept him occupied even after dinner was over and we were having coffee in the hall. I was resigning myself to the idea that we shouldn't be given time for a word together, when out of the crowd appeared Major Vandyke. He was with friends, but escaped, and crossed the hall to shake hands with us. I noticed what stiff, grudging nods he and Eagle gave each other, just enough of a nod not to be a cut. Something disagreeable had evidently happened between them since they left us at Fort Alvarado; for in those days, no matter how they felt, they always kept up the pretence of being good enough friends.
When Major Vandyke had been civil to me and asked after my "people," he began telling Mrs. Dalziel and Milly things about the state of affairs in El Paso. "You may have come in for a small adventure, after all," said he. "We've had to warn the occupants of some of the tallest buildings in town that they may be called on to clear out at five minutes' notice, if we have trouble, for their houses would be in range of gunfire from both sides. But you'll be all right here at the hotel, whatever happens. We're strong enough to protect you."
He laughed, and I saw that he enjoyed teasing timid little Mrs. Dalziel. I thought that haughty "we," constantly coming in, was characteristic of the man, and judging by the odd expression which just flickered lightly across Eagle's face, he was thinking the same thing. Tony joined boyishly in the conversation, to reassure his mother and Milly, and Eagle promptly seized the moment for a word with me.
"Any message?" he asked in a low voice. I shook my head.
"Oh, well," he said, "I'm mighty glad to see you, anyhow, little girl. Lucky Tony! I'm rather jealous of him, you know. I'd got sort of in the habit of thinking I had the only claim."
I felt myself go scarlet. What a good thing one doesn't blush all colours of the rainbow!—for I had the sensation of a prism. "Tony Dalziel may be lucky," I stammered. "I hope he is. But his luck has nothing to do with me. Neither has he—except as a friend. That's quite understood between us."
"Oh, is it?" smiled Eagle. "I'm a selfish beast to be glad, but I am. I was feeling quite low in my mind and 'out of it' at dinner."
So the wistful looks had been for me! It seemed too good to be true, even to have so much place in Eagle's heart that he didn't want to lose me.
When Milly turned to him, as she did almost instantly, for consolation after Major Vandyke's teasing, Eagle told her, while I listened, how very little, in his opinion, there was for any one to fear. It was true, of course, that the troops had come to El Paso for a purpose. Every one thought it had been served by frightening out of a certain faction of Mexicans such vague, secret hopes as they might foolishly have cherished. Now to be sure, the "scare act" was being read again, but the big field guns pointing across the river were in any case powerful enough to keep the peace. Captain March wanted to know if we would care to visit the camps next day. If so, he would help Dalziel arrange the visit. This suggestion saved Milly the trouble of hinting for it, and she was happy; but her happiness was destined to be short-lived. It was destroyed in the night by a band of vicious microbes with which she had been fighting a silent battle during the long journey to El Paso. They won, and kept her in bed with a pink nose and eyes overflowing with grief and influenza.
I nobly offered to stay with her, but Mrs. Dalziel had a son as well as a daughter. She said we must go and take a look at Tony's tent, if we did nothing else; and perhaps it would have ended in our doing not much more if it hadn't been for Eagle.
El Paso was one of the most deliciously exciting places in America just then, and there were many things which I wanted far more to see than Tony Dalziel's tent. There was the town itself, with its broad streets and tall buildings (which made me shiver with the wildly absurd thought of their being smashed by silly rebel guns from across the river); its shady avenues of alluring bungalows, and its parks—all so gay and peaceful in the warm spring sunshine that the very suggestion of war within a thousand miles seemed fantastic melodrama, despite the shouting newspaper boys with a fearsome "extra" coming out every fifteen minutes. There was new Fort Bliss, the cavalry post, and old Fort Bliss, famous, they told me, as long ago as the days of Indian warfare. There was the concentration camp where five thousand Mexicans were guarded by soldiers, and there were the camps of the reinforcing troops, artillery, cavalry, and infantry. I wanted to miss nothing, but when we had motored to old Fort Bliss down by the river and the smelting works, and seen the faded houses in temporary occupation of visiting officers; when we had spun out to new Fort Bliss to admire the smart quarters and barracks, and when we had trailed about a little in "Tony's camp," Mrs. Dalziel was tired. The sun was very hot, and she thought she ought to go home to poor Milly. Captain March, however, was certain that what I ought to do was to see his tent before deserting camp. He had something there which he particularly wished to show me. Tony volunteered to take his mother back to our hired automobile, waiting near the Zoo, and to return for me. I hoped that he might be away a long time, and looked forward to my few minutes alone with Eagle as to a taste of paradise, having no idea that those moments would be long enough to decide the fate of two men.
The camp was a neat, khaki-coloured town of canvas houses, big and little, seemingly countless rows of them, set in rough grass, and sandy earth of the same yellow brown as the tents. How the officers and men knew their narrow lanes and low-browed dwellings apart, I could not imagine, for they all bore the most remarkable family resemblance to one another in shape and feature, except those which boasted mosquito-net draperies to keep out the flies.
Among these more luxurious soldier houses was Eagle's. His tent, prepared for the day, consisted of a canvas wall with a wide-open space all around, between it and the roof; and the whole internal economy was ingenuously open to public gaze. Not that it mattered, for everything was as neat as a model doll's house: the narrow bed, the pathetically meagre toilet arrangements, the one chair, the small trunk which was the sole wardrobe, and the ridiculous shaving mirror stuck up on a pole, above a miniature arsenal.
"I should think you'd cut yourself to pieces," said I, giggling impolitely as I stood on tiptoe, and peered into my own eyes in the tiny looking-glass. "There isn't room to see more than half a feature at a time. I've always been glad I wasn't a man, for two reasons: because I'd hate to have to shave, or to marry a woman. Both are horrid necessities."
"That depends on the razor—and the woman," laughed Eagle. "But as a matter of fact, I value that six-inch square of glass more than any of my other possessions. It's the thing I expressly wanted to show you. Stand back a minute, Lady Vanity, and you'll see why."
I stood back. Eagle did something to the plain dark frame of the mirror, which had a gold rim inside. Then he pulled out the glass from the bottom, and there instead, framed in black and gold, was a photograph of Diana—a lovely photograph: just a head, lips faintly smiling, eyes gazing straight at you and saying in plain eye language, "I love you dearly."
I had never seen the photograph before, and seeing it now gave me a strange frightened feeling, as if I had found out something about Diana which I wasn't supposed to know. It was such anintimateportrait, intended to be revealing, yet really concealing! I felt it was wicked of those beautiful eyes to say what they did not mean, or, perhaps, did not know how to mean; and for my critical stare, behind that "I love you," calculation hid, like the cold glint deep down in the jewel eyes of a Persian cat, when she doesn't want a mouse to guess that she knows it is there.
"Now you can understand why I'm glad to be a man," said Eagle, "in spite of—no,becauseof—well, anyway one of the two 'necessities' you think so 'horrid,' my child. What glory to be chosen out of all the rest who love her by such a woman! And I hope sheisgoing to choose me. I don't believe she's the kind of girl to have a photograph like that taken expressly for a man, if she didn't feel a little of what the picture seems to say she feels, do you?"
I suppose men's ignorance of what she is at heart is a Providence-given suit of chain armour for every woman. But I wasn't myself sure enough yet of what Di might decide to do, to try and disturb Eagle's happy confidence in her. So, instead of answering his questions, I asked him one: "Didshe have that photograph taken expressly for you?"
"Yes," Eagle answered triumphantly. "I don't think she'd mind my repeating to her own sister that she told me so, or that there's only this one copy, and she gave orders to have the negative destroyed."
He had hardly got these words out of his mouth when we heard footsteps, and Major Vandyke stopped suddenly in front of the doorway. In an instant, Eagle had unhooked the frame from the pole, and holding the face of the portrait toward his breast, quietly slipped the mirror into its place again, as, withsang-froidapparently unruffled, he called out: "Hullo, Vandyke! Have you come to see Lady Peggy or me?"
"I didn't know Lady Peggy was here. I was only passing by, on my way to the colonel's," explained Vandyke. "But seeing her, I thought I might be allowed to stop and say 'how do you do?'"
He spoke rather brusquely, but it was impossible to tell from his tone whether it covered anger or expressed only the coolness which had grown up between him and Captain March. As I shook hands with Major Vandyke, I was asking myself anxiously if he could have seen the photograph in passing? If not—and it did seem as if Eagle's head and mine ought to have hidden it from him—our tell-tale words would have meant nothing to his intelligence, even if he had overheard them as he came. If, however, he had snatched a glimpse of Diana's face, and at the same time caught what Eagle said, I was afraid there might be trouble. Provided it were only for Di, I didn't much care, because she thoroughly deserved to have trouble, and it would give her a lesson; but something warned my instinct that the consequences might spread and spread until others suffered, as a ring forever widens in smooth water when the tiniest pebble is thrown.
We were still skirmishing on the outskirts of conversation—What did I think of a soldier's out-of-door quarters? Why hadn't any one yet shown me the great sight, the concentration camp? when Tony Dalziel came hurrying up, to take me back to his mother and the motor. His arrival seemed to bring relief from strain. It was like a brisk breeze blowing away the brooding clouds that stifle the atmosphere before a thunderstorm. I dreaded to go and leave those two men together; but when Major Vandyke suggested walking with us to the car, and asking Mrs. Dalziel about Milly, my heart felt lighter. We stopped only long enough with Eagle to arrange a visit to the concentration camp for next morning, if Milly were better, and then Vandyke, Tony, and I started off.
For the first two or three minutes the major walked along in silence; but when we were well out of sight of Eagle March's tent he interrupted some sentence of Tony's ruthlessly. I don't think he was even aware that the other was speaking.
"See here, Tony, old man, will you do me a favour?" he asked in his nicest manner. "There's a book in my tent I promised to give Lady Peggy, to read aloud to Miss Dalziel—a jolly good story! I forgot to bring it out when I came, and I don't want to go back now if I can help it, because a party of bores are being shown round in that direction, awful people I've escaped from. You don't know them, so they can't hurt you. Will you, like a dear chap, cut off and grab the book? It's on the table; you can't miss it; purple cover."
Tony obligingly "cut," and I waited, breathless, for what was to come, knowing now without being told that Sidney Vandyke had seen the photograph. He had not promised me a book, nor mentioned one.
I had only a few seconds to wait. "Is it true that your sister gave March the picture he has in his tent?" he demanded, rather than asked.
I gasped, doubtful whether it would be wise to bring things to a crisis, or better to try and keep them simmering. But an instant's reflection told me that to shilly-shally with the man in this mood would make what was already bad far worse. "Yes, she gave it to him, of course," I replied. "I think you must have overheard him say so."
I really didn't mean to put emphasis on the offending word, but Major Vandyke suspected it. Perhaps the cap fitted!
"I wasn't eavesdropping," he said. "I happened to hear. That's a very different thing from overhearing. And I have a right to ask you as Diana's sister, Diana herself not being on the spot, to give me an explanation, as I'm sure she would if she were here. Because I have the duplicate of that photo. She told me she'd had it taken for me, and the negative destroyed. I considered it sacred. I would have shown it to nobody."
"I am nobody," said I, "nobody except Captain March's friend, to whom he tells things he wouldn't tell to others. He had the best of reasons to believe I was in Diana's confidence, as well as his. And as for the photograph, it's as sacred to him as it could be to you, Major Vandyke. You might realize that from the clever way he has thought of to hide it; and no person who wasn't absolutelypryingcould have recognized it in passing by his tent. He knew that very well, or he wouldn't have uncovered the picture for even a second."
"If you were a man, you wouldn't dare say such a thing as that to me, Lady Peggy."
"Oh, yes, I would," I retorted, "if I were nearly as big as you. I'm Captain March's friend, not yours; and I'm not a bit afraid to be your enemy if you are his."
"You are more loyal to your friend than to your own flesh and blood," he flung at me. "If you say your sister did give that photograph to March, you make her out a liar. But I won't believe it of her. I prefer to believe it of March instead."
"'Liar' is a strong word," I temporized. "I was always taught that it was very rude, too. You're a flirt, Major Vandyke! Every one says that of you, and I believe you're proud of it. So you ought to have some sympathy with a fellow flirt, like Di. If any one must be blamed, of course it's she, not Captain March. He has as much right to accept a photograph from a girl as you have. But you needn't be too angry with Di, if she made you believe that you were the only one, when she was doing the same thing with Captain March. Probably she didn't 'lie' to either of you in so many words."
"It's not necessary for you to defend Lady Diana to me, I assure you," returned Major Vandyke. "Whatever she may have done, I'm ready to forgive her, if she's willing to stand by me. But I won't have March swaggering around and boasting that she gives him special favours."
"If I were a manyouwouldn't dare saythat!" I burst out. "When you talk about 'boasting,' or 'swaggering,' you must be judging him by yourself, for you are always doing both, he never. I believe Di likes him better than she does you, because he's a sort of popular hero with his flying, and you have nothing except your flirting and your fortune to recommend you to a girl."
If only I hadn't lost my head and thrown that taunt at him! I suppose I shall never know how much difference, or how little, this mistake of mine made. The instant the words were out I would have given anything to recall them. But it was too late. To apologize, or try to explain, would only do more harm. I ventured one sidelong glance at Major Vandyke's face after I had shot that bolt; and I quivered all over as I saw how the blood streamed darkly up to his forehead and swelled the veins at his temples. If I hadn't been afraid of him for Eagle, whose superior officer he was, I might have pitied him for the pain I had inflicted, under which he could keep silence only by biting his lip. I knew he was hating me violently, but I didn't care a rap. All I cared for just then was that he was hating Eagle March, and counting on paying him out in some way—I couldn't guess what.
"I must warn Eagle," I said to myself; and I could almost have kissed Tony, I was so glad to see him when he came back with the purple-covered book which nobody wanted.
Major Vandyke walked on with us to the motor, as if nothing had happened, but he was very silent, letting Tony and me talk undisturbed. It was only after he had spoken in a dry, mechanical way to Mrs. Dalziel, and the car was about to start, that I caught his eyes. There was a look in them as cold and deadly—or I imagined it—as deliberate murder.
I couldn't wait until next day to see Eagle and tell him—I hardly knew what, butsomething, to put him on his guard. He had said that he was engaged to lunch with a man named Donaldson at the Hotel Weldon, and it occurred to me that I might reach him there by telephone. At a little before one o'clock, I called up the hotel, and inquired if Captain March had arrived, to keep an appointment with Mr. Donaldson. The answer was "yes"; and when I had given my name, I was asked to hold the line for a few minutes, until Captain March should come to the telephone.
As I sat with the receiver at my ear, waiting, somebody began to talk in weird Spanish—or "Mex," as I'd heard it nicknamed in El Paso. The telephone and I had never been intimate friends at home, and I'd practically made its acquaintance since coming to America, so I scarcely realized why or how I was hearing that voice. "Is it some one trying to call to me?" I wondered stupidly. "Who knows here, except Eagle, that I speak Spanish?" Then, gradually, it dawned on me that I had "tapped" a conversation going on between persons with whom I had nothing to do. Their chatter could have no interest for me, even if it were excusable to listen, but I didn't drop the receiver lest I should miss Captain March, having been instructed to hold the line till he came. I couldn't help being vaguely pleased, too, that I had picked up enough Spanish in my home studies to understand what was being said. But suddenly my silly conceit was turned into horror. I was overhearing (that word which Major Vandyke had resented!) a plot between a pair of Mexican servants to poison the American families who employed them.
Two women were talking to each other, rapidly, earnestly, in tones of such agitation as they hurried on, that only for the first instant could I fancy a practical joke was being played. "You got the stuff safely? Yes? Then it has gone round among those who will do the work. Only a few have refused to come in. Those who eat will not die, but all will be sick. Then the men cannot fight our men if they come across the river. It is a very good plan to let us women help in our way. Yet, above everything, there must be no mistake! It is for the noon meal on Thursday, but only if we are sure of an attack for that night. We should be lost if we acted too soon. I am the one to pass the word. I am telling one after another to wait until it comes from me, by telephone or in some other way."
The words were rattled off so fast that I could catch no more than half, but I had seized enough to fill up the spaces for myself when the voices were cut off into silence, and Eagle March called, "Hello! Is that you, Peggy?"
"Yes," I said. "I had something important to say to you, but I've heard the most horrid talk going on over the telephone. I'm afraid it may mean a real danger for El Paso. I daren't tell you about it on the wire. Do let me see you! I must! Can you possibly take a taxi and rush over here now, or shall I go to you? I'll do that if you can't come to me."
"I'll come to you, of course," answered Eagle. "I'll excuse myself to Donaldson, and be with you in five minutes."
"Good; in the hall," I said. "I'll run down now and wait for you."
Mrs. Dalziel and I were to lunch in Milly's room, to keep her company and tell her all the news; but the meal wasn't due yet for half an hour, so there was plenty of time before my hostess should come knocking at the door. I had just found a quiet place in the corner of the big marble hall, and annexed a sofa for two, when I saw Eagle walk in. He was looking for me. I beckoned, and he came to me with long strides. It would be hard to tell why, but never had I loved him so well as at that moment. I did not see how I was going to bear a whole, long life without having him in it.
When he had sat down by my side, I told him quickly what I had overheard, and how. The moment he had got the pith of the story he jumped up, looking preoccupied and anxious. "I must go at once," he said, "before the girls at the telephone exchange have time to forget the numbers of those who've called and been called up in the last twenty minutes or so. We may be able to catch the ringleader in that way, and get from her the names of every one in the plot—if it's a genuine plot; and I agree with you that it looks rather like it. Peggy, your fad for studying languages and your quick wits may have saved El Paso from something at the least unpleasant."
"Oh, I hope so!" I cried. "And the women talked about some 'attack!' Don't forget that."
"No fear!" he almost laughed. "Now I must go. You may be asked some questions later on. I hope you won't much mind."
I shook my head. "What does it matter? But, oh, Eagle! I cannot let you go until I've told you what I rang you up for. Major Vandyke saw Di's picture, and heard what we said. And he's furious, because it seems she gave him a photograph—something like yours. I don't quite know what he thinks, but he's more angry with you than with her, and I believe he'll try to get even with you in someway. Look out for him!"
"I will!" This time he laughed outright. "And I don't think he will be able to frighten me into giving up Diana—if she'll have me. Good-bye, dear, and thank you for everything, with all my heart. You're my good angel!"
"How I wish I could be!" I sighed. But he heard neither sigh nor words. He had hurried away and into his waiting taxi.
Unluckily, nothing could be proved through the telephone people, though there was certain circumstantial evidence against one or two Mexican women, as I heard through Eagle March. But American families who employed Mexicans were privately informed of the existence of a possible plot against them, and consequently a number of Mexican servants in El Paso were thrown out of employment at an hour's notice. The authorities did all they could to keep any report out of the papers, but, of course, did not succeed, and the "extras" had choice tit-bits of sensation for that afternoon. The mysterious threat of an impending raid was enlarged upon, too, and to calm the public, as well as impress "the other side of the river," it was decided to have a great parade of troops through the town. A day was settled upon to be called "Army Day"; but meanwhile, precautions were taken to guard against any "surprise coup," such as had been carried out across the Rio Grande at Juarez by a few Constitutionalists against Federals, one night some months before.
The crowds who had been out to stare at the concentration camp, peopled with dark-faced thousands of men, women, and children, trailed in procession as near as they were allowed to approach the field guns placed on a bare, brown eminence whence their long noses pointed grimly across the river. There were six of these guns the day I saw them, all guns of Captain March's battery; but owing to their alignment, and the position of El Paso's few skyscrapers between this hill and the river, only four of the guns would threaten destruction to any buildings in the town, in case the artillery had to be brought into action.
The other two could be fired in the unlikely event of a disturbance, it was believed, without danger to American property. I heard this, with lots of other exciting details of the preparations going on, from Tony Dalziel, who thought—whether rightly or wrongly—that he could chat to me on the one great subject of interest without indiscretion. He told me among other things, that if fire had to be opened on Juarez, just across the river, he understood from talk he heard that these two comparatively innocuous guns would alone be used at first. If the damage they did on the opposite side were enough to force the enemy to capitulate in haste, the other four guns would remain silent, and El Paso intact. But, said Tony (and his fellow officers said the same), in spite of the persistent rumour of a raid, it was almost certain now that there would be no trouble. It was whispered that because Americans had given sanctuary to Federal troops in flight, and for other reasons not so widely known, General Carranza had wanted to organize an attack on the United States frontier across the Rio Grande, temptingly shrunken by a long drought; but it was reported at the same time that General Villa had forcibly opposed the suggestion, and it was very improbable that any serious attempt would be made to carry it out.
It was Tuesday when I gave the alarm of the poison plot, and Thursday was the day gossip suggested for a raid. Nevertheless, the people were no longer nervous. They felt a joyful confidence in the troops who had been sent to reinforce the garrison at Fort Bliss, and even the most bloodcurdling newspaper headlines had at length lost much of their gruesomeness.
By this time Milly Dalziel was as well as ever once more, and using her regained health to make a "dead set" at Eagle March. (I shouldn't tell this of her, if what she did later hadn't influenced events in a strange, dramatic way.) She couldn't let Eagle alone; and she showed her feelings so plainly—as a very rich girl sometimes thinks she may do with a comparatively poor man—that even Eagle himself, despite his lack of self-conceit and his preoccupation with thoughts of Di, couldn't help understanding. He kept out of Milly's way as often as he could, but she attributed this retirement to the calls of duty; and at last began to behave so foolishly that for her own sake he gently snubbed her.
Poor Milly Dalziel had not her pretty, bright red hair for nothing. Her impulsive emotions, which she concealed badly, and her fiery temper were its natural accompaniments. When it burst upon her that Eagle March did not admire her as she admired him, and thought it best she should realize this once for all, she suffered a wild reaction of feeling. From being slavishly, ridiculously in love, she flew to the other extreme; and after an embarrassing little scene, in which Eagle firmly avoided her, she broke out to me in hysterical abuse of him. He was rude; he was "no gentleman"; and she didn't see how I could make a friend of such an ungracious brute. The one thing he could do was to fly, and she only wished hewouldfly—far away, and never be seen again.
I was too sorry for the girl to resent as I ought to have resented her childish but mean abuse. I knew, only too well, how much it hurt to be in love with Eagle March, and not to have him care an American red cent in return. I let Milly talk for a while, and then tried to soothe her down, saying that she would feel differently about everything next day. This was the signal for the girl to turn on me, which she did so ferociously that I began to fear I must find an excuse to cut my visit short. I wanted to stay; I had very little money for travelling, and I was sure Father would send funds with reluctance, especially as he no doubt hoped that Tony and I would after all come together. With Di and me both safely disposed of to rich husbands, he would be free to marry Kitty Main, or do anything he pleased. With this thought in my mind, the situation looked rather desperate, and that night—Thursday night—I was lying awake to wonder what I could do, when suddenly the night silence which falls on lively El Paso after twelve was broken with the noise of a tremendous explosion.
The huge bulk of the hotel quivered, as if struck with a Titan's hammer, and it must have been the same with every other building in town. I jumped out of bed mechanically, not knowing what I did. Only my body acted. For an instant my brain was dazed—connection cut off. The first thing I really knew, I found myself standing at the open window clinging to the curtains. "What is it? What is it?" I was stammering out aloud. And before I could get any answer from within, again came the same appalling sound. With that, as if a second shock could restore the senses stolen by the one preceding, I guessed that what I had heard must be gunfiring on the hill.
"The raid has come, then, after all!" I thought, with awe rather than fear; and thousands of other people must have been thinking the same thought at the same moment.
It was a clear, starry night, the sky glittering like a blue, spangled robe that scintillates with the motion of a dancer, and the electric lamps of the city below lighting the streets as brightly as if the moon were up. When I first reached the high window and stared down from it, I had the impression that those streets were empty, but immediately after the second shot and its reverberating echo, dark figures began swarming out. Heads appeared in every visible window of the hotel. Electricity was switched on in darkened rooms, and women showed themselves in their nightgowns, with hair streaming over their shoulders, or hair lamentably absent, careless whether they were seen or not. I heard screaming and shouting, and then all such small sounds were swallowed up in another roar—the third.
My thoughts flew to Eagle. If there were a raid he would be in danger. He might be killed, and I should never see him again. I didn't think at the minute what might happen to the rest of us. Nothing and no one seemed to matter except Eagle. Still only half conscious of what I did, unable to decide what might be best to do, I dropped on my knees to pray that Eagle might be safe. But I had only just begun to stammer out my appeal when there came a sharp tapping at the door. "Let us in—let us in!" Milly's voice cried, and Mrs. Dalziel quaveringly repeated the same words.
I shot back the bolt, and the two in their nightgowns almost fell into the room. Milly, crying, seized me in her arms and begged me to forgive her for all her unkindness to me. We should probably be dead in a few minutes or hours, and she wanted to die at peace. As she faltered on, Mrs. Dalziel sobbed that Tony would be killed, and their fears made me brave. I was suddenly convinced that there had been no raid and said so. "I'm sure there's nothing to be afraid of," I insisted stoically. "Remember, we've heard only three cannon shots, or sounds like shots. There'd be constant firing if there had been a Mexican surprise. And therecouldn'thave been a 'surprise' after all the warnings we had. Anyhow, a handful of Mexicans wouldn't dare, with all those troops and guns on the spot."
"But what can have happened if it isn't an attack?" wailed Mrs. Dalziel. "If only my son were here!"
"Did the shots come from our side of the river, or the other?" Milly asked, speaking more to herself than to me, for one was as ignorant on the subject as the other. "Icouldn't tell for sure, could you?"
"No," I said. "I hadn't thought of the other side. I just took it for granted it was our own guns firing for some reason or other."
"Butwhatreason?" persisted Milly. "Why should they fire three shots in the dead of the night, and then stop?"
"Perhaps it's maneuvers, or a firing drill, or something," I hazarded weakly, feeling all the time that it was nothing of the sort.
"Perhaps," Mrs. Dalziel and Milly both agreed, looking a little relieved by my silly supposition.
"Shall we hurry up and dress ourselves and go downstairs?" I suggested. "See what a lot of people are in the streets. The whole town's surprised out of its wits, and wild to know what's happened. Why shouldn't we know, too?"
"Oh, yes, let's go down," cried Milly. "By this time Thérèse is certain to be in mother's room, in hysterics and nothing else! We'll make her stop and drape herself in a blanket and dress us."
"Thank goodness I can dress myself, and in five minutes," I said. They went hesitatingly out, forgetting to close my door, and before I could do so myself I heard Thérèse's voice across the hall.
I didn't stop to put up my hair, but let it hang down my back; I didn't even tie my shoes, or fasten more than three hooks of my easiest blouse: one at the top, one in the middle, and one at the waist. Consequently, I was ready before the Dalziels, but waited for them outside the door of their suite, almost dazedly watching people—men and women, half clothed—dashing out of their rooms toward the stairs and elevators. Some of these were jabbering to each other, but nobody seemed to know what had happened. They were merely wondering, as we were; and in the big hall, where some of the lights had been switched on, we could glean no further details. Several of the hotel employés had arrived on the scene, more or less dressed, and they did what they could to calm their guests. Presently one of the managers appeared, and he strongly advised every one to remain in the hotel. If any trouble were afoot, it would be safer indoors than out, and news might be expected soon. He had already sent a trustworthy messenger, he explained, to inquire of the police and the answer would be more reliable than mere wild gossip picked up in the street, among the crowd.
Some of the older men, and all the women, took the manager's advice, though a good many young men disregarded it, and went off foraging for news. Those of us who remained in the house, however, didn't think of meekly returning to our rooms. We herded together in the hall of the hotel, in a fever of expectation, strangers hobnobbing like old acquaintances and exchanging opinions on the mysterious alarm. The time of waiting seemed long; but we three had not been below more than twenty minutes, perhaps, when people who had been out began to stream back with tidings of a sort for their families. No two men had quite the same story to tell. One had heard that a band ofApachesfrom a low quarter of the town had organized a scare to stir up the military. Another had been told on good authority that the Mexicans had fired guns from across the river and injured one of the tall buildings in El Paso, nobody knew which. A third assured everybody that our guns had been fired, but charged only with blank, to frighten the Mexicans, at the moment when they hoped to give us a surprise. By and by, the messenger dispatched by the manager came back; but he had little new light to throw on the situation, except to assure every one on the authority of the police that there had been no raid, and there was no danger of any kind for the town. Accordingly, the best thing for its inhabitants to do would be to go to bed again.
Very few, however, seemed inclined to take this advice. Mrs. Dalziel might have done so had Milly and I consented; but I had an idea that Tony would come to the hotel, if possible, sooner or later, expecting us to be anxious. I was right, for in an hour, or not much more, while we all sat munching sandwiches, hastily provided, the familiar plump figure in khaki stalked into the hall. Milly and I both sprang up, and Tony directed himself toward us; but before he came near enough to speak, I knew that something really terrible had happened. Whether he meant to tell us the truth or not was another question. The jolly, round-faced boy seemed to have lost the characteristics I associated most closely with him; and when a a youth with comical features of the Billiken type is suddenly fitted with a tragic mask, the effect is somehow more alarming than any look of distress on a serious face.
He tried to grin, as his mother greeted him like one returning from the dead. "Why, mater," he said, "any one'd think to see and hear you that I'd been blown to smithereens, and this was my ghost. You'll laugh, I guess, when I tell you what really happened. I got leave to make a dash and put you out of your misery." When he had gone so far, he stopped, and swallowed. He looked sick, and all the more so because of the Billiken grin which he was afraid to let drop. His eyes wandered from his mother to me, and I saw pain in them. I felt for the first time that little Tony was a grown-up man.
"Well—well?" Milly urged him sharply. "Why don't you tell us?"
"I'm a bit out of breath," her brother excused himself. "I hiked over here pretty fast—borrowed a bicycle. Give me a second to get my wind back, sis."
But this was more than Milly could do. "Weren't you with the guns to-night?" she asked. "You said you were going to be."
"Did I say that? Well, I was. But—but the row you all heard had nothing to do with theguns, you know. At least, nothing directly. It was—the ammunition; an accident, you see. One of our chaps dropped a lighted match, and it set fire to part of our train of ammunition. Three shells burst, but—but nobody was hurt—except——"
"Except who?" Milly had to break in before Tony could go on. I said nothing at all. I only looked at him. But after that first glance he kept his eyes away from me, I believed purposely.
"Except an orderly of—one of the officers, and—oh, very slightly indeed—March. He's hardly hurt at all, but—you mustn't be surprised if you don't see him around for the next few days."
The blood rushed up to Milly's pale face, but she pressed her lips together almost viciously, and forced herself not to speak. Her green-gray eyes flashed out one distress signal, then seemed to shut it off deliberately and coldly.
"Captain March!" exclaimed kind Mrs. Dalziel, with real distress. "Oh, I'm so sorry that he should be hurt!"
"So are we all," Tony responded; and voice and face would have told me, if I hadn't guessed before, that he was either keeping back something of grave importance, or else carefully lying.
"Will he really be all right again in a few days?" the dear little lady went on.
"Er—perhaps not all right, but—nothing to worry about," said Tony, with lumbering cheerfulness. "He's in no danger of death, anyhow, that's one good thing."
"What about Major Vandyke?" I heard myself say; and even as the question came, I wondered why I should have thought of it in that connection. But somehow it would out, and only my subconscious self, far down in mysterious depths, knew the reason.
"Oh, Major Vandyke! Why, as it happens, he went over to the other side of the river in his motor car—on business."
A flame of suspicion in me was lit by that match.
"ToMexico!" I exclaimed. "But I was told only this very day, by Captain March, that no officer or soldier was allowed to cross the river on any pretext whatever."
"That was—is—so, in an ordinary way," Tony admitted, swallowing heavily again. "But you see that fearful row on the hill where the guns are might—must have set a hornet's nest buzzing over there. The chaps were likely to think we were potting atthem—out of a clear sky, and—er—they might have begun potting back at us in a minute or two, in their excitement. So, to save the situation, Vandyke scooted across with only his orderly—who's his chauffeur, too—in his own car with some sort of white flag rigged up in a jiffy. I expect he'll get a lot of credit for that dash when the story—I mean the facts, are out."
"Itwasa brave thing to do!" cried Mrs. Dalziel, always delighted to praise any one. "He must have risked his life."
"Yes," said Tony, "no doubt of that. The Mexican bridge sentries might have fired on him in spite of the white flag. They—they did fire, I believe. But Vandyke's all right, anyhow."
"You speak as if some one wasn't." I heard myself talking, though I seemed not to have spoken the words deliberately.
"Only the orderly, poor chap. He was driving the car. I guess the sentries saw him before they saw the white flag."
"They shot him?"
"Yes, unfortunately they did." Tony's voice broke a little, and that struck me as odd; for he could not have had any personal interest, it seemed, in Major Vandyke's chauffeur-orderly.
"I hope they didn't kill the poor fellow?" purred Mrs. Dalziel.
"I don't think he's dead yet, mater, but I'm afraid he's past speaking. They got him in the lungs."
"Major Vandyke's come back, then," I said.
"Oh, yes, he was back in less than an hour, after a parley over there, explaining everything and making the Constitutionalists understand we weren't meaning them any harm. I didn't get leave to see you till just after he had brought his car and his wounded orderly over to this side again. And now, if your minds are calmed down, I'll be off. I've told you no secrets. Everything I've said the papers will repeat to-morrow. But all the same, please don't talk to any one about this business. Promise, mater, and Milly. And I guess I don't need to ask you, Lady Peggy. Now, good-bye. I'll see you as early as I can in the morning."
He kissed his mother, patted Milly on the arm, and gave my hand such a shake that I should have writhed if I had worn any rings. For once, instead of lingering, he had the air of being glad to escape from us, but on an impulse I followed him to the door and called him back just as he had reached the threshold.
"Tony!" I began. He turned with a start, and stopped. I had often been invited, but had never before consented, to call him Tony.
"I want to ask you something before you go," I said.
He gave me a queer, apprehensive look. "Please don't!"
"Then I'll tell you something, instead. There isn't one word of truth in your story about what happened. You've been making it all up."
"That's where you're mistaken," he contradicted me. "I haven't made it up."
"If not, somebody made it up for you, and you've been ordered to put the story round. This is what people are to believe, the version that the papers will be given. But it's no use giving it to me. I don't believe it. So there!"
"It's all I've got to say, and even you won't get a different word out of me," he said despairingly. "You always did have a wonderful imagination, Lady Peggy, but whatever you may think, for God's sake don't blab to any one else, unless to me; and I'd rather you wouldn't even to me. I tell you, I'm pretty near all in."
I let him go, but I made up my mind that I would not be put off with the story which papers and public were to get. I would know the truth, and exactly what had happened to Eagle March.
It was just as Tony had said it would be: the newspapers next day repeated his story. Very few clear details were given. The articles with their spread-eagle headlines concerned themselves more—for a wonder—with effect than cause. They told at length and dramatically how El Paso had been aroused in the dead of night by bomblike explosions which, many had taken for granted, came from the guns on the hill, repelling or revenging a raid from the other side. They told how the public had behaved, and described the relief felt when it had been definitely learned on good authority that the alarm was due to an accident with some ammunition. But about the accident itself there was what struck me as a singular reticence, considering the wild conjectures newspapers did not hesitate to print on other subjects. Theirpièce de résistancewas the magnificent courage and presence of mind displayed by Major Sidney Vandyke of the —th Artillery, whose battery had been concerned in the incident.
I sent for all the El Paso papers, which were brought to me before I was up, very early in the morning; and I sat in bed studying, in one after the other of them, the version of last night's strange affair. Somehow, the general praise of Sidney Vandyke's exploit annoyed me intensely, as one is annoyed when an undeserving person is ignorantly lauded to the skies. I know that on the face of things I had no right to say that he was "undeserving," in this case; but that instinctive rebellion in me against Tony's story last night cried out against it now. "There's something queer under it all," I kept telling myself. "I must find out what it is, and Imustknow about Eagle."
Concerning Captain March, the papers had very little to say. They understood that he had been on the spot when the explosion had occurred, and that he had received slight injuries which would prevent him from carrying on his military duties for some time to come. All their attention was bestowed upon Major Vandyke, who had made himself the hero of what was called "El Paso's Big Night." Owing to the indisposition of the colonel, who had been struck down in the morning by a touch of the sun, Major Vandyke was temporarily in command. His private automobile, which had followed him from Alvarado to El Paso, had brought him from new Fort Bliss to old Fort Bliss on official business: and he was on his way back when, hearing sounds which resembled gunfire, he had stopped his chauffeur on the instant, and dashed on fast up the artillery hill, near which he happened to be. Fearing that the Mexicans—already restless, owing to the attitude of the United States at Vera Cruz and other places, and to the arrival of reinforcements along the Rio Grande—might misunderstand, and work some mad, irreparable mischief, Major Vandyke and his orderly had made a dash across the river. In spite of the white flag used to protect the car and its occupants, the sentinels on guard upon the Mexican side had fired at the sight of men in uniform, and the orderly had been shot. Otherwise, the errand so bravely undertaken had been crowned with success. The Mexicans, thinking they had been fired at, were about to discharge their own field guns, placed in a position of offence, in answer to the menace of the United States. Had Major Vandyke been five minutes later with his diplomatic intervention the word would have been given to fire, and one or more of El Paso's finest buildings might have been destroyed, perhaps with loss of life terrible to think of even now when the danger was past.
The next thing I did, having absorbed all the news I could get from the papers, was to write a letter to Eagle. I told him that I heard he had been hurt, and begged him to send me a line—or a word if he couldn't write—to say how he really was. I inquired if he were in hospital, and if it would be possible for me to see him. When I had finished, I rang and asked for a trustworthy messenger. By and by, a servant of the hotel arrived to do my errand, and I told him as clearly as I could what I wanted. He must go to the big camp near Fort Bliss and inquire for Captain March. I couldn't say whether the officer would be in his own tent or elsewhere, but, anyhow, he must be found. If he were too ill to answer even by word of mouth, the messenger mustn't come back until at least he had learned something about Captain March's condition.
"I'll pay you very well," I said, trying to give the effect of a budding female millionaire.
As soon as the man had gone, I bathed and dressed quickly, in order to be ready if he brought back word that I might be allowed to see Eagle. I didn't care whether I had breakfast or not; but time dragged on, and nothing happened. For the sake of making dull moments pass, I rang for coffee and a roll. It was early still, and Mrs. Dalziel and Milly were doubtless trying to make up for their disturbed night by taking an extra rest.
The tray appeared, and I ate and drank what the choking in my throat would let me swallow, but there was no sign yet of the messenger. I calculated how long it ought to take him to reach the camp on the bicycle he had mentioned; how long to do the errand; how long to return; and still there was nearly an hour unaccounted for. I was so restless and miserable that I could have shrieked. I walked up and down the little white-and-green room as if it were a cage, but soon all my strength had gone from me. I sat on the window seat, staring out as I had stared in the night, hoping now to catch sight of a man on a bicycle.
At last, when I had begun to feel shut in, and only half alive, like the Lady of Shalott, as though nothing could ever happen in my life again, I jumped up at the sound of a knock on the door. It was the messenger. My heart bounded when he took from his pocket a letter, but only to fall at seeing a hotel envelope with my own handwriting on it.
"I'm sorry, miss," the man said, "but I couldn't get to Captain March. I went everywhere and tried asking a lot of folks, but couldn't find out nothing. They wouldn't let me into the camp, even, much less to the gentleman's tent, so I can't tell you whether he's there or not. I did my best, but the army's different from civil life. When they say 'no' they mean 'no' and there ain't no goin' around it, or they prods you with one of them bayonets."
"Surely you haven't come back without any news?" I cried. "You must have heardsomething!"
"Not a thing at the camp, except what I've just told you, miss," the messenger persisted. "I hung around, and whenever I seen some chap going in, if I could get him to speak I asked questions till they begun to take me for one of them newspaper guys. It was only when I seen the stunt was no good I chucked it and come back with your letter. There's just one thing I did hear, but not in camp. 'Twas outside the hotel, as I stopped my wheel. I met an old soldier from the Fort I'd been acquainted with a good long time—fact is, he's engaged to my sister. I asked him if he'd heard about Captain March being wounded. And he said—only I don't know as I ought to tell you what he said——"
"Tell me—every word," I panted.
"Well, then, if it'severyword you want, miss, he said it was all damn nonsense about March being wounded, that something big was up, and he's under arrest."
Under arrest! The words struck like bullets. Just for a second everything swam before my eyes, and I was afraid that I was going to do the most idiotic thing a woman can do—faint. You see, I had had no sleep and wasn't quite at my best. But I pulled myself together, and in my ears my voice sounded only a little sharp, as I asked the messenger if his soldier friend had given him any further information.
"Not he! Shut up tight as a clam," was the answer. "I don't believe he knowed anything else."
There was nothing more to be got from that quarter, so I paid the man and let him go. Then I tried to think how I could hope to probe to the bottom of the mystery, since mystery there certainly was. It seemed to me that, since I wasn't able to reach Eagle by letter, my one chance lay in Tony. His manner, and the admissions he had inadvertently dropped last night, had told me that he had some knowledge of the truth, which was to be hidden from the public. He had refused to be pumped, and I respected him for his refusal; but I wasn't the public. Whatever the secret might be, I would keep it. All I wanted to do was to help Captain March if he could be helped; for I was sure all through to my soul that, if he had been arrested, it was through some terrible mistake or cruel injustice. It was wicked of me, perhaps, deliberately to make a tool of poor Tony's love for me, but I tried to justify myself in deciding to do so by saying that no harm could come to him through it, or evil to any one.
"I'll wheedle the truth out of Tony," I thought again.
I dared not write and beg him to come and see me, for after our parting last night he would suspect what I wanted and have time to steel himself against me before we met. Nor could I go to the camp and try to find him there, for I—a young girl—wouldn't be admitted alone even if I were desperate enough to think of attempting such a wild adventure. If I persuaded Mrs. Dalziel to take me, and we had the luck to see Tony, I shouldn't have a moment with him alone, whereas the process of "wheedling" might take many minutes.
The only thing to do was to wait, and that was the hardest task ever given me. I shall not forget that day even if I live to be an old woman; and looking back on it now over the months which have passed since—months which seem longer than all the rest of my life put together—I believe that my very character took on some change in those hours, as metal is changed if you throw it on to the fire. I felt for the first time that I was a woman, with all the childishness burnt out of me; and I was glad, for I might have to do battle with those who were older and wiser than I.
Mrs. Dalziel and Milly didn't appear till noon; but meanwhile I went down and talked to a great many people in the hotel, people whom I didn't know. After the excitement of the night, everybody chattered and exchanged impressions with everybody else, without stopping to think or care whether they had been introduced to each other. A few of the men had a vague idea that something was being "hushed up," but none could guess what it was, and nobody knew anything about Captain March. Naturally I didn't tell what I had been told: that he was under arrest. I trusted with all my heart that no one else had heard, or would hear, the story. And I prayed that it might not be true. To Milly I would not speak of him at all; for though she had apologized for yesterday, and "made friends" with me again, I knew that there was a cruel streak in her which would rejoice revengefully now, in any trouble that fell on Eagle. She would feel that it was a direct punishment sent by Fate for his indifference to her, and the way in which (for her own good) she had forced him to show it.
We had been engaged for a short motor run with Tony in the afternoon, but I was more disappointed than surprised when he sent a hurried note to his mother saying that there was so much business to do he couldn't get off. He might not even be able to dine. We were not to wait, but he would turn up in time for dinner at seven-thirty if he could. In any case, he would come in for a while later.
I had an evening dress Di had given me after she had tired of it, which I had altered for myself, and Tony particularly liked it. I put it on for dinner that night. Tony did manage to come, bearing an offering—flowers for all three of us. I saw that he noticed the frock, and with a little meaning smile at him, I tucked one of his roses down into the neck. He flushed up at that, poor boy, all over his nice Billiken face, and I felt like every cat in Christendom rolled into one. But it was the first move in my game. I hoped that after so much encouragement, he would make some excuse after dinner to get me to himself.
Scarcely a word was said during the meal concerning Captain March. Mrs. Dalziel inquired about him; Tony with his mouth full answered indistinctly and hurriedly that he was "getting along all right"—as well as anybody could expect; and Milly viperishly turned the subject to Major Vandyke's exploit.
"He'll be a greater popular hero now than Captain March ever was," she remarked with an elaborately impersonal air. "The first thing we know, Peggy, we shall hear that Lady Di is engaged to him; don't you think? She adores heroes. She once told me so."
"What a romance that would be!" beamed nice Mrs. Dalziel, who never saw under the surface of anything. But I was grateful to her for breaking in, and saving me the necessity of an answer to Milly's questions. If I had replied truthfully, I should have had to say that it was exactly what Ididthink. Whatever the secret of the night might turn out to be, I felt sure that Sidney Vandyke had made a desperate bid to win Diana away from Eagle March. And with pangs of sharp remorse I remembered those angry words of mine which had perhaps spurred him to the effort.
Neither Mrs. Dalziel nor Milly appeared to have any suspicions that the origin of the night alarm was not precisely what the newspapers reported; that simplified things for Tony, as far as they were concerned; and I was careful not to fling at him a single embarrassing question. As dinner went on he lost the worried look he had brought with him, a look that was a misfit for his merry personality. He glanced often with a rather pathetic wistfulness at me, which I read very easily and shamefacedly; and at last he broke out with information concerning a torchlight procession that would set forth from one of the parks of El Paso. Of course I knew what this remark was leading up to! He'd heard people say, he went on, that there was going to be quite a good impromptu show, celebrating the end of the "scare"; for it was generally felt that Major Vandyke's diplomatic dash had cleared the air of danger; and if there had ever been any real peril it was past now, once and for all. Would we like to go out and see the sight?
Promptly Milly answered for her mother and herself. They would not like to go out and see the sight. If there was anything worth the trouble of looking at, probably it could be seen from the hotel windows.
"But what aboutyou, Lady Peggy?" Tony asked.
"I'd love to go with you," I answered.
I put on a long cloak, the one I had worn to see "our" battery off at Fort Alvarado railway station, and Tony and I sallied forth together. It was not till we were safely in the street that he told me we were early for the procession. "Never mind," said I. "It's lovely to be out in the blue night. We'll just stroll through quiet streets, where there won't be a crowd to bother us, until it's time to go and gaze at the torches."
"There's a nice little sort of park," he suggested, "not too far away. How would you like to walk there?"
I said I would like it, and as our "little sort of" park wasn't the park whence the procession would start, we had it practically to ourselves. We found an empty seat and sat down side by side like a Tommy Atkins and his "girl" in Kensington Gardens.
The first thing that Tony did when we were anchored together there was to propose again, after an apology. I let him get it over, and then played the next pawn in my game.
"Tony dear," I said softly, when he had finished, "I like you better than any man I know, except one; and that one thinks of me as his good little sister, so you needn't be afraid ofhisinterference. But—there's something thatdoesinterfere!"
"What is it?" he eagerly wanted to know.
"It is—that you don't really love me."
He stared at me through the deepening dusk. "Don't love you? Good Lord, Lady Peggy, I'm a fool about you! Any dough-head can see that."
"Ah, but I'm not a dough-head. I know you don't love me. You proved that last night."
"For the life of me, I can't think what you mean. I I told you I'd try to be your friend, but you knew what that meant! Don't keep me in suspense."
"You've hurt my feelings dreadfully. I've been brooding over it all day."
"I—hurt your feelings? Why, you ought to know I wouldn't for the world——"
"But you did. You refused to trust me. There can be no love without trust."
"I'd trust you with my life. I can't to save myself guess what you're driving at——" He stopped suddenly. My meaning had dawned on him in that instant.
"Now you've guessed, haven't you?" I asked, when for a few seconds, which I counted with heartbeats, he had sat tensely silent.
"Maybe I have. But see here, Peggy, you aren't holding that against me, are you? It wouldn't be fair. I'd trust you with anything of my own; but when it comes to other people's business—official business——"
"Did you ever hear the lines, 'Trust me not at all, or all in all?'" I continued to torture him. "It was Tennyson who made Vivien say those words to Merlin. She was deceiving him, and meant to ruin him when she'd wormed out his secret; for that reason, it isn't a very appropriate quotation. But, otherwise, it's particularly so. If you trusted me for yourself, you'd trust me for others, too. It's the same thing—or else it's nothing. I'm not like Vivien. I don't mean to deceive you, or ruin you, or anything horrid. And I couldn't if I would!"
"You don't need to tell me that," said Tony, very miserable, and making me miserable as well. "I know you're true blue—the truest and bluest—but there are some things I've got no right to do, even for you, Peggy. I'd cut my tongue out to please you, I do believe I would, but to use it in a dishonourable way for your sake is dif——"
"There! Itoldyou you didn't love me!" I reproached him. "You accuse me now of wanting you to do something dishonourable. I don't want you to! I can't see that it would be dishonourable to put me out of suspense about a dear friend like Captain March, a man who's in love with my sister, and wants to marry her, as you surely know. But that settles everything between us, of course. To be perfectly honest with you, Tony, I must say that I'm not certain, even if you did what I have asked, that I'd be able to do whatyouask—love you, except as a friend. I've said before that I couldn't. But I might have changed my mind in future, for all I know, if——"
"If!" echoed Tony. "That's a darned cruel way to put it!" And he looked so much like the nicest Billiken ever seen on earth that I really did love him, though not quite in the way he wanted.
"No doubt I am cruel as well as dishonourable," I replied frigidly. "So now you can easily stop loving me, can't you?"
"No, I can't," he said. "See here, Peggy, what can I say or do to make things right? I think you're the kindest and dearest and most honourable girl whoever lived, and I——"
"Prove it then!" I cried. And I laid my hands on his.
"How? What can I do?"
"Tell me the whole truth about what happened last night. Oh—I'm not trying to bribe you! I don't promise if you do tell, that I'll love you, or marry you, or anything important of that sort. All I promise is to be so grateful, so glad, that—who knows how I may feel to you afterward? And anyhow, I'll let you kiss me, this very night—on my cheek."
"You will? Yet—you say you're not bribing me! You couldn't offer me a much bigger bribe. Why, Peggy, I'd be happy just to die—after getting a kiss from you—even on your cheek!" and he laughed at himself forlornly.
"You're a dear boy, Tony," I said, crushed with remorse. "The kiss won't be a bribe, either. It will be a token of—of—I hardly know what. But partly of gratitude, the deepest gratitude, if you can trust me enough to believe I'll be true."
"I do believe that, indeed I do believe it, forever. And—and—by Jove! Iwilltell you," he broke out, with a kind of breathless gasp. "You're too strong for me, Peggy. You'vegotme! But after all, there's no such great harm in telling, now. It's different from last night. Then I didn't know—nobody knew, I suppose—what the upshot of certain things might be. As it's turned out, some of the story will have to be known. Not all—but the part you want to know most."
"Tell me that," I pleaded.
"You swear you'll never breathe anything I say to you?"
"I swear I never will, until you give me leave."
"Well, then, those three explosions you heard last night weren't explosions at all.They were shots from our field guns.But I'll tell you what happened exactly—both sides of the story."
"Both sides? How is it there are two?"
"Well, there's March's side, and——"
"And—what other one?"
"And Major Vandyke's side."
"I knew it!" I cried out sharply. "I knew that man would try to ruin Eagle. I should like to shoot him with one of those very guns."
"Peggy, you mustn't talk like that," Tony warned me. "If you do, I can't go on."
"Forgive me," I said, and let him hold my hand, happy for a moment in the belief that he was soothing me.
"You know—you've heard, I guess, that Vandyke was in command last night, because the colonel had a touch of the sun? But that isn't the right way to begin my story. I'm hanged if I know how to begin it! We were up there on the hill with the guns, on guard; I mean I was, and the men. And March came along, and strolled off again a little way with his field glasses. Maybe thirty or forty yards distant, he was. I wasn't noticing anything—felt rather sleepy, and was trying all I knew to keep awake. I was in charge of the guns, you see. I guess I was thinking about you. I generally am. Anyhow, the first thing I knew, March hurried back. He seemed queer and excited, and stood still a minute as if he was struck all of a heap. Then to my amazement he rapped out an order to load and fire number one and number two guns, aiming at a spot just beyond the bridge. But before we'd had time to do more than gasp—I and the gunners—he changed his order, and commanded us to fire blank. Lord, that was a relief—though even blank would be bad enough for the lot of us if it turned out that March had gone suddenly mad. You fire blank for a salute, you know: but Mexico wasn't likely to take it as a compliment! Luckily we'd some rounds of blank, served out to us in case we might need to send a scare and not a peppering across the river. There was nothing for it but to obey orders, though I couldn't help thinking about 'The Charge of the Light Brigade,' when every one knew that some one had blundered. March shouted out, 'Go slow!' And you bet we did go slow! It seemed as if he must be off his head—or somebody else was—for so far as we could tell—and it was a fairly clear night—there wasn't a sign of trouble on the other side of the river.
"We'd only fired the three shots, when Major Vandyke pounced on us, ordered us to stop, and wanted to know what the devil and all his angels March was up to. 'Carrying outyourorders,' said March. 'That's a da——' but what's the use of repeating to you, Peggy, what they said to each other? The principal thing is, Vandyke denied having given any order to fire, and cursed March for all he was worth. Said he might be the cause of bringing us and Mexico to grips over the incident. Then he dashed off in his automobile, which was waiting for him under the hill (he'd been in it, you know, or he couldn't have got to the spot so soon); you must have read that in the papers; and so much of their story was true. Whatever you may think of Vandyke, Peggy, that wasman'ssize work! He took his life in his hands, the way the Mexicans must have been buzzing in their wasp's nest over there, after the hot water we'd thrown on it."
"It was the sort of thing he'd love to do," I said implacably. "The theatrical thing. He must have known, too, that the man driving the car was the one in greater danger. Buthedidn't drive!"
"He never does drive. He didn't just funk it at that one time; it's his habit. I've always heard him say he hated to drive a car. Too lazy! Anyhow, there was the very dickens to pay. Before leaving the hill for his dash across the river he'd told March to consider himself under arrest——"
"How dared he?" I fiercely wanted to know. "That wasn't his business."
"Oh, yes it was! He's March's superior officer. Besides any officer has the right, if—but I won't worry your head with military rules and regulations! What you want to know is, how this affects Captain March, don't you?"
"Yes, that's the great thing to me," I admitted. "Tony, will it ruin him?"
"It's early days to say as much as that, yet. It all depends on the result of the court-martial."
"Will he be court-martialled?"
"Of course. There's nothing else for it. It's a question which of those two men can establish his case, and a court-martial will have to decide between them. But, I'm afraid, Peggy, it will go against March. The circumstances were so very queer, and Vandyke's denial of giving any order at all is so strong. Besides, it would be such a mad, improbable thing for him to give such an order, as there was no danger of attack. He'd have no motive."
"He would have a motive," I broke in. "I can prove that. Will they let a woman bear witness for a prisoner in a military court-martial?"
"I suppose your evidence could be taken, if they were certain it had an important bearing on the case. But I don't see how that could have, Peggy. This isn't women's business, it's men's."
"And devils'," I finished for him. "We won't argue now whether my evidence could be important or not. Tell me both sides of the story you were speaking of, first Captain March's, then Major Vandyke's."
"Well, March says that while he was strolling about, at a short distance from the guns, looking through his field glasses at a fire he could see on the other side of the river, he saw a chap in khaki hurry up the hill, wheeling a bicycle. As soon as the fellow came near enough to make out his features, March says he recognized Vandyke's orderly, a man who's been the major's soldier servant for a good length of time. This orderly, according to March, brought a verbal order from Vandyke as acting colonel, to begin firing number one and number two guns, and keep them in action until further notice, aiming at a spot just beyond one of the bridges on the Mexican side. March said he was so astounded at getting such an order, he thought there must be some awful mistake, and before obeying he wanted to have it on paper. So he took the risk of any danger from delay in case the order was really all right, and scribbled a few lines to Vandyke on a leaf torn out of his notebook——"
"A leaf torn out of his notebook!" I couldn't help echoing. "Perhaps it was the one I gave him."
"Shouldn't wonder!" Tony went on, stolidly. "He says he repeated in writing the command he'd just received, and begged Vandyke, if it was correct, to confirm him in the same way. The messenger dashed off, leaving March wondering like thunder what it all meant: whether there was some fearful mistake, or whether there was a big crisis, and no time for written orders. He could see, of course, that it might be possible, and that Vandyke had ordered only those two guns to be fired just to scare the Mexicans off from playing any trick they were at. The spot he was to aim at suggested that explanation, for not much harm ought to be done with a few shots directed that way. Not much of what you might call 'materialharm' I mean. But there was no end to the harm such an incident could do, if there'd been nothing to provoke it. You see the situation as March says he saw it, don't you?"