A CARPET KNIGHT, INDEED
The flag at Camp Sandy drooped from the peak. Except by order it never
hung halfway. The flag at the agency fluttered no higher than the
cross-trees, telling that Death had loved some shining mark and had
not sued in vain. Under this symbol of mourning, far up the valley,
the interpreter was telling to a circle of dark, sullen, and
unresponsive faces a fact that every Apache knew before. Under the
full-masted flag at the post, a civilian servant of the nation lay
garbed for burial. Poor Daly had passed away with hardly a chance to
tell his tale, with only a loving, weeping woman or two to mourn him.
Over the camp the shadow of death tempered the dazzling sunshine, for
all Sandy felt the strain and spoke only with sorrow. He meant well,
did Daly, that was accorded him now. He only lacked "savvy" said they
who had dwelt long in the land of Apache.
Over at the hospital two poor women wept, and twice their number
strove to soothe. Janet Wren and Mrs. Graham were there, as ever, when
sorrow and trouble came. Mrs. Sanders and Mrs. Cutler, too, were
hovering about the mourners, doing what they could, and the hospital
matron, busy day and night of late, had never left her patient until
he needed her no more, and then had turned to minister to those he
left behind--the widow and the fatherless. Over on the shaded verandas
other women met and murmured in the soft, sympathetic drawl
appropriate to funereal occasion, and men nodded silently to each
other. Death was something these latter saw so frequently it brought
but little of terror. Other things were happening of far greater
moment that they could not fathom at all.
Captain Wren, after four days of close arrest, had been released by
the order of Major Plume himself, who, pending action on his
application for leave of absence, had gone on sick report and secluded
himself within his quarters. It was rumored that Mrs. Plume was
seriously ill, so ill, indeed, she had to be denied to every one of
the sympathizing women who called, even to Janet, sister of their
soldier next-door neighbor, but recently a military prisoner, yet now,
by law and custom, commander of the post.
Several things had conspired to bring about this condition of affairs.
Byrne, to begin with, had been closely questioning Shannon, and had
reached certain conclusions with regard to the stabbing of Mullins
that were laid before Plume, already stunned by the knowledge that,
sleeping as his friendly advisers declared, or waking, as his inner
consciousness would have it, Clarice, his young and still beautiful
wife, had left her pillow and gone by night toward the northern limit
of the line of quarters. If Wren were tried, or even accused, that
fact would be the first urged in his defense. Plume's stern
accusation of Elise had evoked from her nothing but a voluble storm of
protest. Madame was ill, sleepless, nervous--had gone forth to walk
away her nervousness. She, Elise, had gone in search and brought her
home. Downs, the wretch, when as stoutly questioned, declared he had
been blind drunk; saw nobody, knew nothing, and must have taken the
lieutenant's whisky. Plume shrank from asking Norah questions. He
could not bring himself to talking of his wife to the girl of the
laundresses' quarters, but he knew now that he must drop that much of
the case against Wren.
Then came the final blow. Byrne had gone to the agency, making every
effort through runners, with promises of immunity, to coax back the
renegades to the reservation, and so avert another Apache war. Plume,
in sore perplexity, was praying for the complete restoration of
Mullins--the only thing that could avert investigation--when, as he
entered his office the morning of this eventful day, Doty's young face
was eloquent with news.
One of the first things done by Lieutenant Blakely when permitted by
Dr. Graham to sit and speak, was to dictate a letter to the post
adjutant, the original of which, together with the archives of Camp
Sandy, was long since buried among the hidden treasures of the War
Department. The following is a copy of the paper placed by Mr. Doty in
the major's hands even before he could reach his desk:
CAMP SANDY, A. T.,
October --, 187--
LIEUTENANT J. J. DOTY,
8th U. S. Infantry,
Post Adjutant.
_Sir_: I have the honor to submit for the consideration of
the post commander, the following:
Shortly after retreat on the --th inst. I was suddenly
accosted in my quarters by Captain Robert Wren, ----th
Cavalry, and accused of an act of treachery to him;--an
accusation which called forth instant and indignant denial.
He had, as I now have cause to know, most excellent reason
for believing his charge to be true, and the single blow he
dealt me was the result of intense and natural wrath. That
the consequences were so serious he could not have foreseen.
As the man most injured in the affair, I earnestly ask that
no charges be preferred. Were we in civil life I should
refuse to prosecute, and, if the case be brought before a
court-martial it will probably fail--for lack of evidence.
Very Respectfully,
Your Obedient Servant,
NEIL D. BLAKELY,
1st Lieut., ----th Cavalry.
Now, Doty had been known to hold his tongue when a harmful story might
be spread, but he could no more suppress his rejoicing over this than
he could the impulse to put it in slang. "Say, aint this just a
corker?" said this ingenuous youth, as he spread it on his desk for
Graham's grimly gleaming eyes. Plume had read it in dull, apathetic,
unseeing fashion. It was the morning after the Apache _emeute_. Plume
had stared hard at his adjutant a moment, then, whipping up the sun
hat that he had dropped on his desk, and merely saying, "I'll
return--shortly," had sped to his darkened quarters and not for an
hour had he reappeared. Then the first thing he asked for was that
letter of Mr. Blakely's, which, this time, he read with lips
compressed and twitching a bit at the corners. Then he called for a
telegraph blank and sent a wire to intercept Byrne at the agency. "I
shall turn over command to Wren at noon. I'm too ill for further
duty," was all he said. Byrne read the rest between the lines.
But Graham went straightway to the quarters of Captain Wren, a rough
pencil copy of that most unusual paper in his hand. "R-robert Wren,"
said he, as he entered, unknocking and unannounced, "will ye listen to
this? Nay, Angela, lass, don't go." When strongly moved, as we have
seen, our doctor dropped to the borderland of dialect.
In the dim light from the shaded windows he had not at first seen the
girl. She was seated on a footstool, her hands on her father's knee,
her fond face gazing up into his, and that strong, bony hand of his
resting on her head and toying with the ribbon, the "snood," as he
loved to call it, with which she bound her abundant tresses. At sound
of the doctor's voice, Janet, ever apprehensive of ill, had come forth
from the dining room, silver brush and towel in hand, and stood at the
doorway, gazing austerely. She could not yet forgive her brother's
friend his condemnation of her methods as concerned her brother's
child. Angela, rising to her full height, stood with one hand on the
back of her father's chair, the other began softly stroking the
grizzled crop from his furrowed forehead.
No one spoke a word as Graham began and slowly, to the uttermost
line, read his draft of Blakely's missive. No one spoke for a moment
after he had finished. Angela, with parted lips and dilated eyes, had
stood at first drinking in each syllable, then, with heaving bosom,
she slowly turned, her left hand falling by her side. Wren sat in
silence, his deep-set eyes glowering on the grim reader, a dazed look
on his rugged face. Then he reached up and drew the slim, tremulous
hand from his forehead and snuggled it against his stubbly cheek, and
still he could not speak. Janet slowly backed away into the darkness
of the dining room. The situation had softening tendencies and Janet's
nature revolted at sentiment. It was Graham's voice that again broke
the silence.
"For a vain carpet knight, 'whose best boast was to wear a braid of
his fair lady's hair,' it strikes me our butterfly chaser has some
points of a gentleman," said he, slowly folding his paper. "I might
say more," he continued presently, retiring toward the hall. Then,
pausing at the doorway, "but I won't," he concluded, and abruptly
vanished.
An hour later, when Janet in person went to answer a knock at the
door, she glanced in at the parlor as she passed, and that peep
revealed Angela again seated on her footstool, with her bonny head
pillowed on her father's knee, his hand again toying with the glossy
tresses, and both father and child looked up, expectant. Yes, there
stood the young adjutant, officially equipped with belt and sword and
spotless gloves. "Can I see the captain?" he asked, lifting his natty
_kepi_, and the captain arose and strode to the door.
"Major Plume presents his compliments--and this letter, sir,"
stammered the youth, blushing, too, at sight of Angela, beaming on him
from the parlor door. "And--you're in command, sir. The major has gone
on sick report."
That evening a solemn _cortège_ filed away down the winding road to
the northward flats and took the route to the little cemetery, almost
all the garrison following to the grave all that was mortal of the
hapless agent. Byrne, returned from the agency, was there to represent
the general commanding the department. Wren stalked solemnly beside
him as commander of the post. Even the women followed, tripping
daintily through the sand. Graham watched them from the porch of the
post hospital. He could not long leave Mullins, tossing in fever and
delirium. He had but recently left Lieutenant Blakely, sitting up and
placidly busying himself in patching butterfly wings, and Blakely had
even come to the front door to look at the distant gathering of
decorous mourners. But the bandaged head was withdrawn as two tall,
feminine forms came gravely up the row, one so prim and almost
antique, the other so lithe and lissome. He retreated to the front
room, and with the one available eye at the veiled window, followed
her, the latter, until the white flowing skirt was swept from the
field of his vision. He had stood but a few hours previous on the spot
where he had received that furious blow five nights before, and this
time, with cordial grasp, had taken the huge hand that dealt it
between his white and slender palms. "Forgive us our trespasses as we
forgive those," Wren had murmured, as he read the deeply regretful
words of his late accuser and commander, for had not he in his turn,
and without delay, also to eat humble pie? There was something almost
pathetic in the attitude of the big soldier as he came to the darkened
room and stood before his junior and subordinate, but the latter had
stilled the broken, clumsy, faltering words with which this strong,
masterful man was striving to make amend for bitter wrong. "I won't
listen to more, Captain Wren," he said. "You had reasons I never
dreamed of--then. Our eyes have been opened" (one of his was still
closed). "You have said more than enough. Let us start afresh
now--with better understanding."
"It--it is generous in you, Blakely. I misjudged
everything--everybody, and now,--well, you know there are still
Hotspurs in the service. I'm thinking some man may be ass enough to
say you got a blow without resenting--"
Blakely smiled, a contorted and disunited smile, perhaps, and one much
trammeled by adhesive plaster. Yet there was placid unconcern in the
visible lines of his pale face. "I think I shall know how to answer,"
said he. And so for the day, and without mention of the name uppermost
in the thoughts of each, the two had parted--for the first time as
friends.
But the night was yet to come.