"That was all merely the love of sensation?" asked the surgeon.
"Of course," Baynell assented, and fell silent.
This had been the conclusion among the officers of the surrounding camp, and it was not surprising to the surgeon that Baynell should share it, but there was a consciousness, a mortification, in his manner, that implied a personal interest and forced the question to be dropped. The surgeon had no wish to press it, and moreover he was anxious to avoid exciting the patient. He had some doubt as to the result of the fall; he was meditating seriously on symptoms which indicated that the skull had sustained a fracture. But when he remarked that all might be well if Captain Baynell remained quiet and stirred as little as possible, he was surprised and dismayed by the vehemence with which the patient declared that he must move; he must leave the house; he could not, he would not stay under this roof another night, not even an hour longer. He requested the surgeon to make arrangements to attend him elsewhere, and rang the bell to send a message to camp directing his servant to come and get his personal effects. Only a sleeping-potion could restrain this determination at the time, and the next day a return of the fever and delirium solved the surgeon's problem how to bend the will of the refractory patient to the demands of his own best interests.
Uncle Ephraim found some difficulty in sustaining with composure the disasters and excitement and fears that crowded in upon him. He must play his part with requisite spirit when in presence of the public, and he must suffer in silence and alone. He dared not seek to confer apart with his master as to the next step, lest he rouse suspicion that they had some secret understanding, and had indeed harbored the enemy. He dared not confide his troubles even to his wife, Aunt Chaney, although he yearned for sympathy, for reassurance. The old cook, however, had not been admitted to any detail of the secret presence of Julius in the house. For aught she knew, even now, he was five hundred miles away.
The perversity of the falling out of events dismayed and daunted old Ephraim. Only that morning—the morning of that momentous day—Captain Baynell had announced at the table the termination of his visit.
"An' it wuz time, too. 'Fore de Lawd, it wuz surely time," the old servant grumbled, in surly retrospect. For had the officer but taken his leave and his cigar together, how different it might all have been! "Marse Julius mought hev' seen Miss Leonora, an' mebbe de ladies, an' come down inter de house an' smoked a seegar wid his Pa. Lawdy, massy! wid de curtains drawed, an' de blinds down. Dat's whut he honed for! Oh, 'fore Gawd, I dunno whar dat baby-chile—dat pore leetle Julius—is now!"
His face caught a fleeting grimace to remember the height of the "baby-chile,"—but as helpless, as forlorn, as some tiny waif, and oh, so terribly threatened in this beleaguered, in this thrice-guarded, town!
When at last he was dismissed from his station in the sick room by the sinking of Baynell into slumber under the influence of the sedative administered by the surgeon, old Ephraim, succumbing both in physique and in spirit, even in gait, stumbled downstairs and took his way into the kitchen to find some talk of trifles, some stir of the familiar duties, that might enable him to be rid of his unquiet thoughts, of his dread prognostications, of his sheer terror of the future. He sunk into a wooden chair beside the stove, for the cooking of supper was already under way. He was feeling very old and weary. His countenance seemed to have collapsed in some sort, so did his usual expression of brisk satisfaction and dapper respectfulness and reserve of intelligence prop and sustain its contours. Its bony structure now seemed withdrawn. It was a sort of dilapidated mask of desolation. He drew a long sigh. And then he said:—
"Dis is a tur'ble, tur'ble world, mon!"
"Dis world is a long sight better dan de nex' world for you!" said his wife, rancorously prophetic. "You hear me!"