“Um! I heard it,” he moaned. “And it’s the end of all—the destroyer of our hopes—the harbinger of despair!”
“Look here, Major,” said Uncle John desperately, “be a man, and tell us what you mean.”
“It—it was baby—baby Jane!”
Arthur sobbed and dropped his head upon the table. Rudolph groaned. Runyon swore softly, but with an accent that did not seem very wicked. Uncle John stared hard at the major.
“You’re an ass,” he said. “You’ve had a nightmare.”
The major could not bear such an aspersion, even under the trying circumstances. He scrambled to his feet, this time trembling with indignant anger, and roared:
“I tell you I heard baby—baby Jane—and she was crying! Don’t I know? Don’t I know our baby’s voice?”
Arthur leaped to his feet, a resolute expression upon his face. Instantly they all turned and followed him from the room. Into the hall, up the steps and through the corridor of the South Wing they passed, and just inside the major’s room Rudolph struck a match and lighted a lamp that stood upon the table.
The place was in wild disorder, for when the major leaped from the bed he had dragged the coverings with him and they lay scattered upon the floor. The chair in which he had placed his clothing had been overturned and there was no question that his flight had been a precipitous rout. The casement of the window, set far back in the thick adobe wall, was wide open and the night breeze that came through it made the flame of the lamp flicker weirdly.
Beth proved her courage by bolding crossing the room and closing the window, while the others stood huddled just inside the door. Back of them all was the white face of Major Doyle, a brave soldier who had faced the enemy unflinchingly in many a hard fought battle, but a veritable poltroon in an imaginary ghostly presence.