“Oh, none, sir,” replied Jerrold, with dapper satisfaction. He had managed with much address an infinite number of details, depending on scanty resources and urgently pressed for time—“Only one horse, a good blood bay, became restive and kicked down his stall and caught his off hind leg in the timbers; somehow, in the mêlée it was broken, and he had to be shot.”
“Only one horse,” Captain Howard commented rebukingly. “Are we on the eve of a march? And the war has left hardly a hoof in the whole Cherokee country! Do you expect to foot it to Charlestown?”
Lieutenant Jerrold asserted himself. He wished to marry no one’s handsome daughter, and he cared to play Piquet with no one’s clever sister. He would be particular not to exceed the bounds of military decorum, and that was his only consideration. He knew that he had exerted himself to the utmost to save the situation, succeeding almost beyond the possibilities, the responsibility of which devolved on another man. “I might well have lost them all, sir. The rain had not begun. The store-house and the armory were both on fire, I had no help at first, for I dared not call off the main guard—you had twenty stout fellows in the boats—and the rest of the men were asleep in barracks; some of them were pulled out of bed by the heels. By your leave, Captain, one horse is a small tribute to pay to such a lordly conflagration as that.”
The commandant, open to conviction, nodded his head meditatively. Mervyn wondered if he had not noticed the personal pronoun so obtrusive in Jerrold’s account of the measures he had taken. Mervyn had an ebullition of indignation against himself as he recognized his own inmost thought. He was so proud a man he would fain stand well with himself. Had he not been so cautious a man, so self-conscious, he would at the moment have blurted out the fact of his absence, instead of steeling himself against the waiting expectation, the cynical comment in the eyes of Jerrold and Innis, and postponing the disclosure till he was sure it could come with a good grace. And then the blunt captain! He could not submit his pride to the causticities of Howard’s unprepared surprise and brusque comments. He would say things for which he would be sorry afterward, for which Mervyn would be more sorry, and particularly that Jerrold and Innis should hear them. He was angry with himself, nevertheless, that he should give a galvanic start as Captain Howard’s voice, keyed to surprise and objection, struck smartly on the air.
“Why, that gun, there,” he said, waving his arm toward one of the cannon on the nearest bastion—“that gun has been fired!”
For the piece was run back on its chassis and stood as it was left after the alarm. Jerrold made haste to explain that the men who were detailed to the service of this gun—there were only a few regular gunners in the garrison—were with the expedition. Mervyn stipulated that as the absence of a score had left extra duty for the rest of the garrison the position of this gun had happened to be neglected, although it, as well as the rest, had been cleaned and reloaded.
“Reloaded! But why were they discharged?” demanded Captain Howard, with wide eyes.
The sight of the fire naturally attracted the attention of the Indians—Jerrold explained. They came over from Keowee in canoes by scores. He was afraid that they would seize the opportunity of the disaster while all were so busy with the fire to rush the gates. He ordered the sentinels to disperse them, saying the cannon were to be fired to appease the storm gods. Any lie might be excused—there was such a great crowd gathered as near as the counterscarp in front of the gates. “How many Indians had assembled there, do you think, Mervyn?” Jerrold asked with a touch of mischief or malice.
“I don’t know; I didn’t see them,” Mervyn responded, shortly.
Captain Howard was meditating on the details.