“Think?” said Lieutenant Leigh contemptuously, as he turned away—“nothing!”
“But,” said Captain Dyer quietly, “really I think there is much truth in what he, an observant man, says.”
There was a challenge from the roof just then; and we all went out to find that a mounted man was in sight; and on the captain making use of his glass, I heard him tell Lieutenant Leigh that it was an orderly dragoon.
A few minutes after, it was plain enough to everybody; and soon, man and horse dead beat, the orderly with a despatch trotted into the court.
It was a sight worth seeing, to look upon Mrs Maine clutching at the letter enclosed for her in Captain Dyer’s despatch. Poor woman! it was a treasure to her—one that made her pant as she hurriedly snatched it from the captain’s hand, for all formality was forgotten in those days; and then she hurried away to where her sister was waiting to hear the news.
Story 1—Chapter X.
The orderly took back a despatch from Captain Dyer, starting at daybreak the next morning; but before then, we all knew that matters were getting to wear a terrible aspect. At first, I had been disposed to think that the orderly was romancing, and giving us a few travellers’ tales; but I soon found out that he was in earnest; and more than once I felt a shiver as he sat with our mess, telling us of how regiment after regiment had mutinied and murdered their officers; how station after station had been plundered, collectors butchered, and their wives and daughters sometimes cut down, sometimes carried off by the wretches, who had made a sport of throwing infants from one to the other on their bayonets.
“I never had any children,” sobbed Mrs Bantem then; “and I never wished to have any; for they’re not right for soldiers’ wives; but only to think—the poor sweet, suffering little things. Oh, if I’d only been a man, and been there!”