These are mere specimen bricks from the fabric which Waring had builded in his few months of artillery service. The limits of the story are all too contracted to admit of extended detail. So, without further expansion, it may be said that when he drove up to town on this eventful April day in Cram's wagon and Larkin's hat and Ferry's Hatfield clothes, with Pierce's precious London umbrella by his side and Merton's watch in his pocket, he was as stylish and presentable a fellow as ever issued from a battery barrack, and Jeffers, Cram's English groom, mutely approved the general appearance of his prime favorite among the officers at the post, at most of whom he opened his eyes in cockney amaze, and critically noted the skill with which Mr. Waring tooled the spirited bays along the levee road.
Nearly a mile above the barracks, midway between the long embankment to their left and the tall white picket fence surmounted by the olive-green foliage of magnolias and orange-trees on the other hand, they had come upon a series of deep mud-holes in the way, where the seepage-water from the rapidly-rising flood was turning the road-way into a pond. Stuck helplessly in the mud, an old-fashioned cabriolet was halted. Its driver was out and up to his knees thrashing vainly at his straining, staggering horse. The tortuous road-way was blocked, but Waring had been up and down the river-bank too many times both day and night to be daunted by a matter so trivial. He simply cautioned Jeffers to lean well over the inner wheel, guided his team obliquely up the slope of the levee, and drove quietly along its level top until abreast the scene of the wreck. One glance into the interior of the cab caused him suddenly to stop, to pass the reins back to Jeffers, to spring down the slope until he stood at the edge of the sea of mud. Here he raised his hat and cried,—
"Madame Lascelles! madame! this is indeed lucky—for me. Let me get you out."
At his call a slender, graceful woman who was gazing in anxiety and dismay from the opposite side of the cab and pleading with the driver not to beat his horse, turned suddenly, and a pair of lovely dark eyes lighted up at sight of his face. Her pallor, too, gave instant place to a warm flush. A pretty child at her side clapped her little hands and screamed with delight,—
"Maman! maman! C'est M'sieu' Vayreeng; c'est Sa-am."
"Oh, Monsieur Wareeng! I'm so glad you've come! Do speak to that man! It is horrible the way he beat that poor horse.—Mais non, Nin Nin!" she cried, reproving the child, now stretching forth her little arms to her friend and striving to rise and leap to him.
"I'd like to know how in hell I'm to get this cab out of such a hole as this if I don't beat him," exclaimed the driver, roughly. Then once more, "Dash blank dash your infernal hide! I'll learn you to balk with me again!" Then down came more furious lashes on the quivering hide, and the poor tortured brute began to back, thereby placing the frail four-wheeler in imminent danger of being upset.
"Steady there! Hold your hand, sir! Don't strike that horse again. Just stand at his head a moment and keep quiet till I get these ladies out," called Waring, in tone quiet yet commanding.
"I'll get 'em out myself in my own way, if they'll only stop their infernal yellin'," was the coarse reply.