"Ye-es, he's been drinking ever since. I've just sent the doctor to see him. Let the corporal and one man of the guard go with the ambulance to escort Mrs. Doyle out of the garrison and take her home. She shall not stay."
"Why, she's gone, sir," said Ferry. "The guard told me she went out of the back gate and up the track towards Anatole's—going for all she was worth—just after dawn."
"The mischief she has! What can have started her? Did you see her yourself, Sergeant Bennett?" asked the captain of a stocky little Irish soldier standing at the moment with drawn sabre awaiting opportunity to speak to his commander.
"Yes, sir," and the sabre came flashing up to the present. "She'd wint over to the hospital to get some medicine for the lieutenant just after our bugle sounded first call, and she came runnin' out as I wint to call the officer of the day, sir. She ran back to the lieutenant's quarters ahead of me, and was up only a minute or two whin down she came again wid some bundles, and away she wint to the north gate, runnin' wild-like. The steward told me a moment after of Dawson's escape."
"Dawson! escaped from hospital?"
"Yes, sir. They thought he was all right last evening when he was sleeping, and took the sentry off, and at four this morning he was gone."
CHAPTER VII.
Forty-eight hours had passed, and not a trace had been found of Lieutenant Waring. The civil officers of the law had held grave converse with the seniors on duty at the barracks, and Cram's face was lined with anxiety and trouble. The formal inquest was held as the flood subsided, and the evidence of the post surgeon was most important. About the throat of the murdered man were indubitable marks of violence. The skin was torn as by finger-nails, the flesh bruised and discolored as by fiercely-grasping fingers. But death, said the doctor, was caused by the single stab. Driven downward with savage force, a sharp-pointed, two-edged, straight-bladed knife had pierced the heart, and all was over in an instant. One other wound there was, a slashing cut across the stomach, which had let a large amount of blood, but might possibly not have been mortal. What part the deceased had taken in the struggle could only be conjectured. A little five-chambered revolver which he habitually carried was found on the floor close at hand. Two charges had been recently fired, for the barrel was black with powder; but no one had heard a shot.