The amulet: A novel

by Charles Egbert Craddock

They all noted his signs of anxiety and agitation, but there was not an immediate response to his remark, for there could be no freedom of speculation with a superior officer upon the untoward probabilities of an enterprise which he had chosen to set on foot. The silence was the less embarrassing because of the absorptions of the matter immediately in hand, for the pool was being formed during the deal. But when the trump was turned, and the players had “declared,” there was a momentary pause of expectation, each relying on some tactful comment of the other. Innis, the blond young ensign, looked demurely into the fire and said nothing. Lieutenant Jerrold, having already glanced through his hand and seeing “Pam” among the cards, thought it hard lines that the commandant should not betake himself to his own quarters and cease to interfere with the game. By way of promoting this consummation he suggested fatuously:—

“Raymond will pick a spot near good water.”

“Water!” screamed Captain Howard. “Gad, sir. Pick a spot! Water! In this weather he has nothing to do but to hold his fool mouth open. Water!”

The lieutenant’s unhappy precipitancy suggested the ambush of the highest card, and his eagerness to utilize it, to the mind of another player, Ensign Lawrence, who held the lead. He held also the ace of trumps.

At his sudden cry, “Be civil,—Pam, be civil,” Captain Howard started from his preoccupation as if he had been shot, glancing from under his bushy eye-brows at the table on which the young officer was banging down the ace with great triumph.

The cabalistic phrase was of course only designed to secure the immunity of the ace from capture by “Pam,” but somehow its singular aptness of rebuke and Captain Howard’s attitude of sensitive expectation shook the poise of the board. Ensign Lawrence turned very red, and only clumsily made shift to gather in the trick he had taken, for “Pam,” of course, could not be played, his civility having been bespoken, according to the rules of the game, and the holder following suit. The other officers made an effort to conceal their embarrassment. Bolt, the fort-adjutant, cleared his throat uneasily. The onlooking quarter-master with the pipe began a sentence, paused, forgetting its purport midway, and silence continued till Ensign Innis came hastily to the rescue with a suggestion which he thought a masterly diversion.

“I suppose it was an important matter which took Raymond to Choté in such weather, sir?”

Captain Howard withered him with a glance.

“You have been long enough in the service, sir, to know better than to ask questions,” he replied sternly.

Then he rose and betook himself forth into the densely whirling snow, repenting of his irascibility, calling himself a condemned spoil-sport, and looking at the sky, which was all of a bleak blackness, as well as the buffeting flakes would permit. He noted the blur of orange light flaring out from barrack-windows and guard-house door, and guided his route to his own quarters by the situation of these oases in the surrounding desert of gloom.