Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession Part 15

"Send him! Who? My G.o.d! what do you mean?" cried Miranda, rising slowly from her chair, with clasped hands and ashen cheeks.

"Philip Searle, my husband!" shouted Moll, rising also, and standing with gleaming eyes before the trembling girl.

Miranda sank slowly back into her seat, tearless, but shuddering as with an ague fit. Only from her lips, with a moaning sound, a murmur came:

"No, no, no! oh, no!"

"May G.o.d strike me dead this instant, if it is not true!" said Moll, sadly; for she felt for the poor girl's, distress.

Miranda rose, her hands pressed tightly against her heart, and moved toward the door with tottering and uncertain steps, like one who suffocates and seeks fresh air. Then her white lips were stained with purple; a red stream gushed from her mouth and dyed the vestment on her bosom; and ere Moll could reach her, she had sunk, with an agonizing sob, upon the floor.

CHAPTER XVII.

The night after the unhappy circ.u.mstance we have related, in the bar-room of a Broadway hotel, in New York city, a colonel of volunteers, moustached and uniformed, and evidently in a very unmilitary condition of unsteadiness, was entertaining a group of convivial acquaintances, with baccha.n.a.lian exercises and martian gossip.

He had already, with a month's experience at the seat of war, culled the glories of unfought fields, and was therefore an object of admiration to his civilian friends, and of envy to several unfledged heroes, whose maiden swords had as yet only jingled on the pavement of Broadway, or flashed in the gaslight of saloons. They were yet none the less conscious of their own importance, these embryo Napoleons, but wore their shoulder straps with a killing air, and had often, on a sunny afternoon, stood the fire of bright eyes from innumerable promenading batteries, with gallantry, to say the least.

And now they stood, like Caesars, amid clouds of smoke, and wielded their formidable goblets with the ease of veterans, though not always with a soldierly precision. And why should they not? Their tailors had made them heroes, every one; and they had never yet once led the van in a retreat.

"And how's Tim?" asked one of the black-coated hangers-on upon prospective glory.

"Tim's in hot water," answered the colonel, elevating his chin and elbow with a gesture more suggestive of Bacchus than of Mars.

"Hot brandy and water would be more like him," said the acknowledged wit of the party, looking gravely at the sugar in his empty gla.s.s, as if indifferent to the bursts of laughter which rewarded his appropriate sally.

"I'll tell you about it," said the colonel. "Fill up, boys. Thompson, take a fresh segar."

Thompson took it, and the boys filled up, while the colonel flung down a specimen of Uncle Sam's eagle with an emphasis that demonstrated what he would do for the bird when opportunity offered.

"You see, we had a party of Congressmen in camp, and were cracking some champagne bottles in the adjutant's tent. We considered it a military necessity to floor the legislators, you know; but one old senator was tough as a siege-gun, and wouldn't even wink at his third bottle. So the corks flew about like minie b.a.l.l.s, but never a man but was too good a soldier to cry 'hold, enough.' As for that old demijohn of a senator, it seemed he couldn't hold enough, and wouldn't if he could; so we directed the main battle against him, and opened a masked battery upon him, by uncovering a bottle of Otard; but he never flinched. It was a game of _Brag_ all over, and every one kept ordering 'a little more grape.'

Presently, up slaps a mounted aid, galloping like mad, and in tumbles the sleepy orderly for the officer of the day.

"'That's you, Tim,' says I. But Tim was just then singing the Star Spangled Banner in a convivial whisper to the tune of the Red, White, and Blue, and wouldn't be disturbed on no account.

"'Tumble out, Tim,' says I, 'or I'll have you court-martialled and shot.'

"'In the neck,' says Tim. But he did manage to tumble out, and finished the last stanzas with a flourish, for the edification of the mounted aid-de-camp.

"'Where's the officer of the day?' asked the aid, looking suspiciously at Tim's shaky knees.

"'He stands before you,' replied Tim, steadying himself a little by affectionately hanging on to the horse's tail.

"'You sir? you're unfit for duty, and I'll report you, sir, at headquarters,' said the aid, who was a West Pointer, you know, stiff as a poker in regimentals.

"'Sir!--hic,' replied Tim, with an attempt at offended dignity, the effect of which was rather spoiled by the accompanying hiccough.

"'Where's the colonel!' asked the aid.

"'Drunk,' says that rascal, Tim, confidentially, with a knowing wink.

"'Where's the adjutant?'

"'Drunk.'

"'Good G.o.d, sir, are you all drunk?'

"''Cept the surgeon--he's got the measles.'

"'Orderly, give this dispatch, to the first sober officer you can find.'

"'It's no use, captain,' says Tim, 'the regiment's drunk--'cept me, hic!' and Tim lost his balance, and tumbled over the orderly, for you see the captain put spurs to his horse rather suddenly, and whisked the friendly tail out of his hands.

"So we were all up before the general the next day, but swore ourselves clear, all except Tim, who had the circ.u.mstantial evidence rather too strong against him."

"And such are the men in whom the country has placed its trust?"

muttered a grey-headed old gentleman, who, while apparently absorbed in his newspaper, had been listening to the colonel's narrative.

A young man who had lounged into the room approached the party and caught the colonel's eye:

"Ah! Searle, how are you? Come up and take a drink."

A further requisition was made upon the bartender, and the company indulged anew. Searle, although a little pale and nervous, was all life and gaiety. His coming was a fresh brand on the convivial flame, and the party, too much exhilarated to be content with pus.h.i.+ng one vice to excess, sallied forth in search of whatever other the great city might afford. They had not to look far. Folly is at no fault in the metropolis for food of whatever quality to feed upon; and they were soon accommodated with excitement to their hearts content at a fas.h.i.+onable gambling saloon on Broadway. The colonel played with recklessness and daring that, if he carries it to the battle-field, will wreathe his brow with laurels; but like many a rash soldier before him, he did not win.

On the contrary, his eagles took flight with a rapidity suggestive of the old adage that "gold hath wings," and when, long after midnight, he stood upon the deserted street alone with Philip Searle and his reflections, he was a sadder and a soberer man.

"Searle, I'm a ruined man."

"You'll fight all the better for it," replied Philip, knocking the ashes from his segar. "Come, you'll never mend the matter by taking cold here in the night air; where do you put up? I'll see you home."

"D--n you, you take it easy," said the colonel, bitterly. Philip could afford to take it easy, for he had most of the colonel's money in his pocket. In fact, the unhappy votary of Mars was more thoroughly ruined than his companion was aware of, for when fortune was. .h.i.tting him hardest, he had not hesitated to bring into action a reserve of government funds which had been intrusted to his charge for specific purposes.

"Searle," said the colonel, after they had walked along silently for a few minutes, "I was telling you this evening about that vacant captaincy."

"Yes, you were telling me I shouldn't have it," replied Philip, with an accent of injured friends.h.i.+p.

"Well, I fancied it out of my power to do anything about it. But"--

"Well, but?"--

"I think I might get it for you, for--for"----

"A consideration?" suggested Philip, interrogatively.

"Well, to be plain with you, let me have five hundred, and you've won all of that to-night, and I'll get you the captaincy."

"We'll talk about it to-morrow morning," replied Philip.