Part 15 (1/2)
”Send him! Who? My G.o.d! what do you mean?” cried Miranda, rising slowly from her chair, with clasped hands and ashen cheeks.
”Philip Searle, my husband!” shouted Moll, rising also, and standing with gleaming eyes before the trembling girl.
Miranda sank slowly back into her seat, tearless, but shuddering as with an ague fit. Only from her lips, with a moaning sound, a murmur came:
”No, no, no! oh, no!”
”May G.o.d strike me dead this instant, if it is not true!” said Moll, sadly; for she felt for the poor girl's, distress.
Miranda rose, her hands pressed tightly against her heart, and moved toward the door with tottering and uncertain steps, like one who suffocates and seeks fresh air. Then her white lips were stained with purple; a red stream gushed from her mouth and dyed the vestment on her bosom; and ere Moll could reach her, she had sunk, with an agonizing sob, upon the floor.
CHAPTER XVII.
The night after the unhappy circ.u.mstance we have related, in the bar-room of a Broadway hotel, in New York city, a colonel of volunteers, moustached and uniformed, and evidently in a very unmilitary condition of unsteadiness, was entertaining a group of convivial acquaintances, with baccha.n.a.lian exercises and martian gossip.
He had already, with a month's experience at the seat of war, culled the glories of unfought fields, and was therefore an object of admiration to his civilian friends, and of envy to several unfledged heroes, whose maiden swords had as yet only jingled on the pavement of Broadway, or flashed in the gaslight of saloons. They were yet none the less conscious of their own importance, these embryo Napoleons, but wore their shoulder straps with a killing air, and had often, on a sunny afternoon, stood the fire of bright eyes from innumerable promenading batteries, with gallantry, to say the least.
And now they stood, like Caesars, amid clouds of smoke, and wielded their formidable goblets with the ease of veterans, though not always with a soldierly precision. And why should they not? Their tailors had made them heroes, every one; and they had never yet once led the van in a retreat.
”And how's Tim?” asked one of the black-coated hangers-on upon prospective glory.
”Tim's in hot water,” answered the colonel, elevating his chin and elbow with a gesture more suggestive of Bacchus than of Mars.
”Hot brandy and water would be more like him,” said the acknowledged wit of the party, looking gravely at the sugar in his empty gla.s.s, as if indifferent to the bursts of laughter which rewarded his appropriate sally.
”I'll tell you about it,” said the colonel. ”Fill up, boys. Thompson, take a fresh segar.”
Thompson took it, and the boys filled up, while the colonel flung down a specimen of Uncle Sam's eagle with an emphasis that demonstrated what he would do for the bird when opportunity offered.
”You see, we had a party of Congressmen in camp, and were cracking some champagne bottles in the adjutant's tent. We considered it a military necessity to floor the legislators, you know; but one old senator was tough as a siege-gun, and wouldn't even wink at his third bottle. So the corks flew about like minie b.a.l.l.s, but never a man but was too good a soldier to cry 'hold, enough.' As for that old demijohn of a senator, it seemed he couldn't hold enough, and wouldn't if he could; so we directed the main battle against him, and opened a masked battery upon him, by uncovering a bottle of Otard; but he never flinched. It was a game of _Brag_ all over, and every one kept ordering 'a little more grape.'
Presently, up slaps a mounted aid, galloping like mad, and in tumbles the sleepy orderly for the officer of the day.
”'That's you, Tim,' says I. But Tim was just then singing the Star Spangled Banner in a convivial whisper to the tune of the Red, White, and Blue, and wouldn't be disturbed on no account.
”'Tumble out, Tim,' says I, 'or I'll have you court-martialled and shot.'
”'In the neck,' says Tim. But he did manage to tumble out, and finished the last stanzas with a flourish, for the edification of the mounted aid-de-camp.
”'Where's the officer of the day?' asked the aid, looking suspiciously at Tim's shaky knees.
”'He stands before you,' replied Tim, steadying himself a little by affectionately hanging on to the horse's tail.
”'You sir? you're unfit for duty, and I'll report you, sir, at headquarters,' said the aid, who was a West Pointer, you know, stiff as a poker in regimentals.
”'Sir!--hic,' replied Tim, with an attempt at offended dignity, the effect of which was rather spoiled by the accompanying hiccough.
”'Where's the colonel!' asked the aid.
”'Drunk,' says that rascal, Tim, confidentially, with a knowing wink.