Part 3 (1/2)

”As you, my friends, are safe for the present, I must be off to-morrow morning with my men,” said the lieutenant when I got back; ”but I will report the position you are in at Fort Harwood, and should you have reason to expect an attack you can dispatch a messenger, and relief will, I am sure, be immediately sent you.”

I do not know that Uncle Jeff cared much about this promise, so confident did he feel in his power to protect his own property,-- believing that his men, though few, would prove staunch. But he thanked the lieutenant, and hoped he should have the pleasure of seeing him again before long.

During the night the sergeant was taken ill; and as he was no better in the morning, Lieutenant Broadstreet, who did not wish to go without him, was further delayed. The lieutenant hoped, however, that by noon the poor fellow might have sufficiently recovered to enable them to start.

After breakfast I accompanied him to the hut to visit the other men.

Although he summoned them by name,--shouting out ”Karl Klitz,” ”Barney Gillooly,” ”Pat Sperry,”--no one answered; so, shoving open the door, we entered. At first the hut appeared to be empty, but as we looked into one of the bunks we beheld the last-named individual, so sound asleep that, though his officer shouted to him to know what had become of his comrades, he only replied by grunts.

”The fellow must be drunk,” exclaimed the lieutenant, shaking the man.

This was very evident; and as the lieutenant intended not to set off immediately, he resolved to leave him in bed to sleep off his debauch.

But what had become of the German and the fat Irishman? was the question. The men belonging to the hut were all away, so we had to go in search of one of them, to learn if he could give any account of the truants. The negro, who went by no other name than Sam or Black Sam, was the first we met. Sam averred, on his honour as a gentleman, that when he left the hut in the morning they were all sleeping as quietly as lambs; and he concluded that they had gone out to take a bath in the stream, or a draught of cool water at the spring. The latter the lieutenant thought most probable, if they had been indulging in potations of whisky on the previous evening; as to bathing, none of them were likely to go and indulge in such a luxury.

To Cold-Water Spring we went; but they were not to be seen, nor could the other men give any account of them.

The lieutenant burst into a fit of laughter, not unmixed with vexation.

”A pretty set of troops I have to command--my sergeant sick, one drunk, and two missing.”

”Probably Klitz and Gillooly have only taken a ramble, and will soon be back,” I observed; ”and by that time the other fellow will have recovered from his tipsy fit; so it is of no use to be vexed. You should be more anxious about Sergeant Custis, for I fear he will not be able to accompany you for several days to come.”

On going back to the house, we found the sergeant no better. Rachel, indeed, said that he was in a raging fever, and that he must have suffered from a sunstroke, or something of that sort.

The lieutenant was now almost in despair; and though the dispatches he carried were not of vital importance, yet they ought, he said, to be delivered as soon as possible, and he had already delayed two days. As there was no help for it, however, and he could not at all events set out until his men came back, I invited him to take a fis.h.i.+ng-rod and accompany me to a part of the stream where, although he might not catch many fish, he would at all events enjoy the scenery.

It was a wild place; the rocks rose to a sheer height of two or three hundred feet above our heads, broken into a variety of fantastic forms.

In one place there was a cleft in the rock, out of which the water flowed into the main stream. The lieutenant, who was fond of fis.h.i.+ng, was soon absorbed in the sport, and, as I expected, forgot his troubles about his men.

He had caught several trout and a couple of catfish, when I saw Rachel hurrying towards us.

”Ma.s.sa Sergeant much worse,” she exclaimed; ”him fear him die; want bery much to see him officer, so I come away while Missie Clarice watch ober him. Him bery quiet now,--no fear ob him crying out for present.”

On hearing this, we gathered up our fis.h.i.+ng-rods and hastened back to the house, considerably outwalking Rachel, who came puffing after us.

We found Clarice standing by the bedside of the sick man, moistening his parched lips, and driving away the flies from his face.

”I am afraid I am going, sir,” he said as the lieutenant bent over him.

”Before I die, I wish to tell you that I do not trust those two men of ours, Karl Klitz and Gillooly. I learned from Pat Sperry that they have been constantly putting their heads together of late, and he suspects that they intend either to desert, or to do some mischief or other.”

”Thank you,” said the lieutenant; ”but do not trouble yourself about such matters now. I will look after the men. You must try to keep your mind quiet. I hope that you are not going to die, as you suppose. I have seen many men look much worse than you do, and yet recover.”

The sergeant, after he had relieved his mind, appeared to be more quiet.

Rachel insisted on his taking some of her remedies; and as evening drew on he was apparently better,--at all events, no worse. Clarice and the negress were unremitting in their attentions, utterly regardless of the fever being infectious; I do not think, indeed, that the idea that it was so ever entered their heads.

The lieutenant had been so occupied with his poor sergeant, that he seemed to have forgotten all about his missing men. At last, however, he recollected them, and I went back with him to the hut.

On the way we looked into the stables, where we found the five horses and baggage-mules all right; so that the men, if they had deserted, must have done so on foot.