Rawdon's frank face clouded and colored one moment, but the eyes never flinched.
"It was partly on account of the lady who is now my wife, and partly on account of—money. Fitzroy is an out-and-out usurer, and has a dozen sergeants in the regiment in his debt and under his thumb, Captain Snaffle's first sergeant among them."
"It's the truth," said Riggs, "and I have other proofs. You will curb your tongue and your temper, Captain Snaffle, if you please. Go on, Rawdon."
"I had reason to believe he was squeezing Doctor Mayhew. I had learned to love Mayhew's daughter. I had a little money laid by, and was getting a good salary. I made Doctor Mayhew take enough to free himself, and won Fitzroy's hate on both accounts."
"You are accused of assaulting him the night of the 16th. What of that?"
"I did not even see him or speak to him. I had been in town in the afternoon, arranging for our marriage. Doctor Mayhew would not hear of it until I had got my discharge, but we had decided to be married Saturday morning, and to go East that afternoon, as important business called me. Mr. Lowndes will tell you that he owed me much money. I had lost my position as correspondent, needed the cash, and pressed him for it. He had promised faithfully to have it ready, but ready it was not. I knew of his relatives in Massachusetts and urged him to telegraph, but he said he could get some of it, at least, at the fort. So I drove him and Cary out in a sleigh, left them at the store, and, circling the fort, spent two hours with Miss Mayhew. Then getting uneasy, as they did not come, drove round back to the store just in time to see Lieutenant Foster's sleigh going like the wind to town, and found Rafferty in frantic excitement. He said there was hell to pay. The lieutenant was in arrest. Lowndes and Cary had run away with some of his clothes. There'd been a shindy up the row, and just then a soldier friend came running. 'Skip for your life, Rawdon,' said he. 'There's been robbery at Captain Sumter's, and Sergeant Fitzroy swears it was you, and that you've struck him and assaulted him. The colonel orders you arrested wherever found. The patrols are out now!' There was no time to explain. I lashed my team to town, caught Lowndes in cavalry overcoat and cap, the fool, and with not a cent to his name. I gave Cary a note to Miss Mayhew, which he never delivered, and took Lowndes with me on Number Six at 11.40."
"Then you were not at Captain Sumter's that night?"
"Nowhere near it, sir."
Snaffle's eyes were fairly popping from their sockets. Hadn't he said all along it was Lanier?