A wire
from that point about sundown had announced the safe arrival of the
party from Camp Sandy. The answer, sent at ten o'clock, broke up the
game of whist at the quarters of the inspector general. Byrne, the
recipient, gravely read it, backed from the table, and vainly strove
not to see the anxious inquiry in the eyes of Major Plume, his guest.
But Plume cornered him.
"From Sandy?" he asked. "May I read it?"
Byrne hesitated just one moment, then placed the paper in his junior's
hand. Plume read, turned very white, and the paper fell from his
trembling fingers. The message merely said:
Mullins recovering and quite rational, though very weak. He
says two women were his assailants. Courier with dispatches
at once.
(Signed) CUTLER, Commanding.
CHAPTER XII
FIRE!
"It was not so much his wounds as his weakness," Dr. Graham was
saying, later still that autumn night, "that led to my declaring
Blakely unfit to take the field. He would have gone in spite of me,
but for the general's order. He has gone now in spite of me, and no
one knows where."
It was then nearly twelve o'clock, and "the Bugologist" was still
abroad. Dinner, as usual since his mishap, had been sent over to him
from the officers' mess soon after sunset.
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