SOMERS COMES TO HIS SENSES.
When Somers opened his eyes, about half an hour after the striking event
just narrated, and became conscious that he was still in the land of the
living, he was lying on the bed in his chamber at the Continental. By
his side stood Lieutenant Pillgrim and a surgeon.
"Where am I?" asked the young officer, using the original expression
made and provided for occasions of this kind.
"You are here, my dear fellow," replied the lieutenant.
This valuable information seemed to afford the injured party a great
deal of consolation, for he looked around the apartment, not wildly, as
he would have done if this book were a novel, but with a look of
perplexity and dissatisfaction. As Mr. Ensign Somers was eminently a
fighting man on all proper occasions, he probably felt displeased with
himself to think he had given the stalwart seaman so easy a victory; for
he distinctly remembered the affair in which he had been so rudely
treated, though there was a great gulf between the past and the present
in his recollection.
"How do you feel, Mr. Somers?" asked the surgeon.
"The fact that I feel at all is quite enough for me at the present time,
without going into the question as to how I feel," replied the patient,
with a sickly smile. "I don't exactly know how I do feel. My ideas are
rather confused."
"I should think they might be," added the surgeon. "You have had a hard
rap on the head."
"So I should judge, for my brain is rather muddled."
"Does your head pain you?" asked the medical gentleman, placing his hand
on the injured part.
"It does not exactly pain me, but it feels rather sore. I think I will
get up, and see how that affects me."
Somers got up, and immediately came to the conclusion that he was not
very badly damaged; and the surgeon was happy to corroborate his
opinion. With the exception of a soreness over the left temple, he felt
pretty well. The blow from the iron fist of the burly seaman had stunned
him; and the kicks received from the big boots of the assailant had
produced sundry black and blue places on his body, which a man not
accustomed to hard knocks might have looked upon with suspicion, but to
which Somers paid no attention.
The surgeon had carefully examined him before his consciousness
returned, and was fully satisfied that he had not been seriously
injured. Somers walked across the room two or three times, and bathed
his head with cold water, which in a great measure restored the
consistency of his ideas. He felt a little sore, but he soon became as
chipper and as cheerful as an early robin. His first thought was, that
he had escaped being murdered, and he was devoutly thankful to God for
the mercy which had again spared his life.
The doctor, after giving him some directions in regard to his head, and
the black and blue spots on his body, left the room. He was a naval
surgeon, a guest in the hotel, and promised to see his patient again in
the morning.
"How do you feel, Somers?" asked Lieutenant Pillgrim, who sat on the
bed, gazing with interest, not unmixed with anxiety, at his companion.
"I feel pretty well, considering the hard rap I got on the head."
"You have a hard head, Somers."
"Why so?"
"If you had not, you would have been a dead man. The fellow pounded you
with his fist, which is about as heavy as an anvil, and kicked you with
his boots, which are large enough and stout enough to make two very
respectable gunboats."
"Things are rather mixed in my mind," added Somers, rubbing his head
again, as if to explain how a strong-minded young man like himself
should be troubled in his upper works.
"I am not surprised at that. You have remained insensible more than half
an hour. I was afraid, before the surgeon saw you, that your pipe was
out, and you had become a D.D. without taking orders."
"I think I had a narrow escape. What a tiger the fellow was that pitched
into me!"
"It was all a mistake on his part."
"Perhaps it was; but that don't make my head feel any better. Who is he,
and what is he?"
"He is the captain of a coaster. He had considerable money in his
pocket, and he thought you had concealed yourself in his room for the
purpose of robbing him. When he saw that you were an officer in the
navy, he was overwhelmed with confusion, and really felt very bad about
it."
"I don't know that I blame him for what he did, under the circumstances.
His conclusion was not a very unnatural one. I don't exactly comprehend
how I happen to be in the Continental House, after these stunning
events."
"Don't you?" said Pillgrim, with a smile.
"If I had been in condition to expect anything, I should naturally have
expected to find myself, on coming to my senses, in the low groggery
where I received the blows."
"That is very easily accounted for. I happened to be at the house when
you were struck down. I was in the lower room, and heard the row. With
others I went up to see what the matter was. I had a carriage in the
street, and when I recognized you, the captain of the coaster, at my
request, took you up in his arms like a baby, carried you down into the
street, and put you into the vehicle, and you were brought here. I
presume this will fill up the entire gap in your recollection."
"It is all as clear as mud now," laughed Somers. "Mr. Pillgrim, I am
very grateful to you for the kind offices you rendered me."
"Don't mention it, my dear fellow. I should have been worse than a brute
if I had done any less than I did."
"That may be; but my gratitude is none the less earnest on that account.
Those are villainous people in that house, and I might have been
butchered and cut up, if I had been left there."
"I think not. The captain of the coaster is evidently an honest man; at
any rate he is very sorry for what he did. But, Somers, my dear
fellow,--you will pardon me if I seem impertinent,--how did you happen
to be in such a place?" continued Mr. Pillgrim, with a certain
affectation of slyness in his look, as though he had caught the
exemplary young man in a house where he would not have been willing to
be seen.
"How did _you_ happen to be there?" demanded Somers.
"I don't profess to be a very proper person. I take my whiskey when I
want it."
"So do I; and the only difference between us is, that I never happen to
want it."
"I did not go into that house for my whiskey, though. It is rather
strange that we should both happen into such a place at the same time."
"Rather strange."
"But I will tell you why I was there," added Pillgrim. "I received a
letter from a wounded sailor, asking me to call upon him, and assist him
in obtaining a pension."
"Did you, indeed!" exclaimed Somers, amazed at this explanation. "You
have also told how I happened to be there."
"How was that?"
"I received just such a letter as that you describe," replied Somers,
taking the dirty epistle from his pocket, which he opened and exhibited
to his brother officer.
"The handwriting is the same, and the substance of both letters is
essentially the same. That's odd--isn't it?" continued the lieutenant,
as he drew the epistle he had received from his pocket. "I got mine when
I came in, about ten o'clock; and thinking I might go to New York in the
morning for a couple of days, I thought I would attend to the matter at
once."
Somers took the letters, and compared them. They were written by the
same person, on the same kind of paper, and were both mailed on the same
day.
"This looks rather suspicious to me," added Pillgrim, reflecting on the
circumstances.
"Why suspicious?"
"Why should both of us have been called? Tom Barron claims to have
served with me, as he did with you. I don't remember any such person."
"Neither do I."
"Did you find out whether there was any such person at the house as Tom
Barron?"
"The woman at the bar told me there was a wounded sailor there whose
description answered to that contained in the letter."
"So she told me. Did you see him?"
"No."
"I did not; and between you and me, I don't believe there is any Tom
Barron there, or anywhere else. This business must be investigated,"
said Pillgrim, very decidedly.
Somers did not wish it to be investigated. He was utterly opposed to an
investigation, for he was fearful, if the matter should be "ventilated,"
that more would be shown than he was willing to have exhibited at the
present time; in other words, Coles would find out that his enterprising
scheme had been exposed to a third person.
"I don't care to be mixed up in any revelations of low life, Mr.
Pillgrim; and, as I have lost nothing, and the hard knocks I received
were given under a mistake, I think I would rather let the matter rest
just where it is."
"Very natural for a young man of your style," laughed the lieutenant.
"You are afraid the people of Pinchbrook will read in the papers that
Mr. Somers has been in bad places."
"They might put a wrong construction on the case," replied Somers,
willing to have his reasons for avoiding an investigation as strong as
possible.
"I can hand these letters over to the police, and let the officers
inquire into the matter," added Pillgrim. "They need not call any
names."
"I would rather not stir up the dirty pool. Besides, Tom Barron and his
mother may be in the house, after all. There is no evidence to the
contrary."
"I shall satisfy myself on that point by another visit to the house. If
I find there is such a person there, I shall be satisfied."
"That will be the better way."
Just then it occurred to Somers that Coles might have seen him while he
was insensible, and was already aware that his scheme had miscarried. He
questioned Pillgrim, therefore, in regard to the persons in the bar-room
when he entered. From the answers received he satisfied himself that
the conspirators had departed before the "row" in the front room
occurred.
"Now, Somers, I am going down to that house again before I sleep," said
the lieutenant. "This time, I shall take my revolver. Will you go with
me?"
"I don't feel exactly able to go out again to-night. My head doesn't
feel just right," replied Somers, who, however, had other reasons for
keeping his room, the principal of which was the fear that he might meet
Coles there, and that, by some accident, his presence in the front room
during the conference might be disclosed.
"I think you are right, Somers. You had better keep still to-night,"
said Pillgrim. "Shall I send you up anything?"
"Thank you; I don't need anything."
"A glass of Bourbon whiskey would do you good. It would quiet your
nerves, and put you to sleep."
"Perhaps it would, but I shall lie awake on those terms."
"Don't be bigoted, my dear fellow. Of course I prescribe the whiskey as
a medicine."
"You are no surgeon."
"It would quiet your nerves."
"Let them kick, if nothing but whiskey will quiet them," laughed Somers.
"Seriously, Mr. Pillgrim, I am very much obliged to you for your
kindness, and for your interest in me; but I think I shall be better
without the whiskey than with it."
"As you please, Somers. If you are up when I return, I will tell you
what I find at the house."
"Thank you; I will leave my door unfastened."
Mr. Pillgrim left the room to make his perilous examination of the
locality of his friend's misfortunes. Somers walked the apartment,
nervous and excited, considering the events of the evening. He then
seated himself, and carefully wrote out the statement of Coles in regard
to the Ben Nevis, and the method by which he purposed to operate in
getting her to sea as a Confederate cruiser, with extended memoranda of
all the conversation to which he had listened. Before he had finished
this task, Lieutenant Pillgrim returned.
"It is all right," said he, as he entered the room.
"What's all right?"
"There is such a person as Thomas Barron. The facts contained in the
letters are essentially true."
"Then no investigation is necessary," replied Somers, with a feeling of
relief.
"None whatever; to-morrow I will see that the poor fellow is sent to the
hospital, and his mother provided for."
Mr. Pillgrim, after again recommending a glass of whiskey, took his
leave, and Somers finished his paper. He went to bed, and in spite of
the fact that he had drank no whiskey, his nerves were quiet, and he
dropped asleep like a good Christian, with a prayer in his heart for the
"loved ones at home" and elsewhere.
The next morning, though he was still quite sore, and his head felt
heavier than usual, he was in much better condition, physically, than
could have been expected. After breakfast, as he sat in the parlor of
the hotel, he was accosted by a gentleman in blue clothes, with a very
small cap on his head.
"An officer of the navy, I perceive," said the stranger, courteously.
"How are you, Langdon?" was the thought, but not the reply, of Somers.