The newcomer, at a rough word of command from Scott, slowly moved forward into the radius of candlelight.
His hair and clothes were in disorder, his face was pasty, and his eyes were red and bleared. The hand that went to his throbbing head, as he stood at attention across the table from Scott, trembled from nerve-rack.
The general leaned back again in his chair and eyed Brinton through half-shut lids. Now that his victim was actually in his presence the old chief was able to force back rage for the moment and to substitute for it the no less fierce martinet discipline for which he had long been famed.
“You are Lieutenant-Colonel James Brinton?” he asked. “Of General Taylor’s staff, I believe?”
“Yes, sir,” came the unsteady reply.
“You were sent here by General Taylor with a message to me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Which message you publicly delivered in the plaza to-day.”
“No, sir!” almost shouted Brinton.
The involuntary eagerness wherewith he made the denial drove drink-pains tearing madly through his head and sent an ensuing wave of nausea over his whole numbed body.