“Strange, indeed, what you have related,” said Captain Headley, gravely, when his wife had ceased. “I confess I scarcely know what to think or how to act. I must hold council with my officers immediately—hear their opinions without divulging aught of what you have related, and act as my own judgment confirms. How unfortunate! Ronayne and his wife, accompanied by Von Voltenberg, have taken it into their heads to ride to Hardscrabble, and God knows when they will be back. Really, this is most annoying.”
At that moment a terrible shriek, as that of a man in his last fearful agony, was heard without. Struck with sudden dismay, both Captain Headley and his wife rushed to the door, which they reached even as Ensign Ronayne, pale, without his hat, his hair blowing in the breeze, and his cheek colorless as death, was in the act of falling from his jaded horse, whose trembling limbs and sides covered with foam, attested the desperate speed with which he had been ridden.
“Oh, God! he has heard all—he knows all,” murmured Mrs. Headley, as she fell back in the arms of her husband. “Now, then, is the drama of horror but commenced.”
Before the unfortunate officer could be—raised and carried to his apartments by the sympathizing soldiers of the garrison, another horseman followed into the fort. It was Doctor Van Voltenberg, whose flushed face and excited appearance denoted the speed at which he too had ridden. He flung himself from his horse, and followed anxiously to the apartment of his friend.
But where was the third of the party? where was Maria, the universally beloved of every soldier of that garrison? where was Mrs. Ronayne?
[CHAPTER III.]
“A sailor's wife had chestnuts in her lap, and mouncht.”
—Macbeth
“Thy abundant goodness shall excuse this deadly blot in thy digressing son.”
—Richard II.