And all day long the storm beat upon the substantial buildings of the old barracks and flooded the low ground about the sheds and stables. Drills for the infantry were necessarily suspended, several sentries, even, being taken off their posts. The men clustered in the squad-rooms and listened with more or less credulity to the theories and confirmatory statements of fact as related by the imaginative or loquacious of their number. The majority of the officers gathered under the flaring lamp-lights at the sutler's store and occupied themselves pretty much as did their inferiors in grade, though poker and punch—specialties of Mr. Finkbein, the sutler—lent additional color to the stories in circulation.
From this congress the better element of the commissioned force was absent, the names, nationalities, and idiomatic peculiarities of speech of the individual members being identical in most instances with those of their comrades in arms in the ranks. "Brax" had summoned Minor, Lawrence, Kinsey, and Dryden to hear what the post surgeon had to say on his return, but cautioned them to keep quiet. As a result of this precaution, the mystery of the situation became redoubled by one o'clock, and was intensified by two, when it was announced that Private Dawson had attempted to break away out of the hospital after a visit from the same doctor in his professional capacity. People were tempted out on their galleries in the driving storm, and colored servants flitted from kitchen to kitchen to gather or dispense new rumors, but nobody knew what to make of it when, soon after two, an orderly rode in from town dripping with mud and wet, delivered a note to the colonel, and took one from him to Mr. Ferry, now sole representative of the officers of Battery "X" present for duty. Ferry in return sent the bedraggled horseman on to the battery quarters with an order to the first sergeant, and in about fifteen minutes a sergeant and two men, mounted and each leading a spare horse, appeared under Ferry's gallery, and that officer proceeded to occupy one of the vacant saddles, and, followed by his party, went clattering out of the sally-port and splashing over to the levee. Stable-call sounded as usual at four o'clock, and, for the first time in the record of that disciplined organization since the devastating hand of Yellow Jack was laid upon it the previous year, no officer appeared to supervise the grooming and feeding. Two of them were at the post, however. Mr. Doyle, in arrest on charge of absence without leave, was escorted to his quarters about four-fifteen, and was promptly visited by sympathizing and inquisitive comrades from the Hotel Finkbein, while Mr. Ferry, who had effected the arrest, was detained making his report to the post commander. Night came on apace, the wind began to die away with the going down of the sun, the rain ceased to fall, a pallid moon began peering at odd intervals through rifts in the cloudy veil, when Cram rode splashing into barracks, worn with anxiety and care, at eleven o'clock, and, stopping only for a moment to take his wife in his arms and kiss her anxious face and shake his head in response to her eager query for news of Waring, he hurried down-stairs again and over to Doyle's quarters. All was darkness there, but he never hesitated. Tramping loudly over the gallery, he banged at the door, then, turning the knob, intending to burst right in, as was the way in the rough old days, was surprised to find the bolt set.
"Doyle, open. I want to see you at once."
All silence within.
"Doyle, open, or, if you are too drunk to get up, I'll kick in the door."
A groan, a whispered colloquy, then the rattle of bolt and chain. The door opened about an inch, and an oily Irish voice inquired,—
"Hwat's wanted, capt'in?"
"You here?" exclaimed Cram, in disgust. "What business have you in this garrison? If the colonel knew it, you'd be driven out at the point of the bayonet."
"Sure where should wife be but at her husband's side whin he's sick and sufferin'? Didn't they root him out of bed and comfort this day and ride him down like a felon in all the storm? Sure it was the doughboys' orders, sir. I told Doyle the capt'in niver would have——"
"Oh, be quiet: I must see Doyle, and at once."