When the officers were alone the colonel took hurried counsel of them."I think," said Captain Fleetwood, "that Lady Elfrida's story quite explains itself.I believe this affair is purely a local one, and has nothing whatever to do with the suspicious appearances we noticed this afternoon, or the presence of so large a body of Indians near Butternut.Had this been a hostile movement they would have scarcely allowed so valuable a capture as Lady Elfrida to escape them.""Unless they kept Atherly and his sister as a hostage," said Captain Joyce.
"But Atherly is one of their friends; indeed he is their mediator and apostle, a non-combatant, and has their confidence," returned the colonel."It is much more reasonable to suppose that Atherly has noticed some disaffection among these 'friendlies,' and he fears that our sending a party to his assistance might precipitate a collision.Or he may have reason to believe that this stopping of the two women under the very walls of the fort is only a feint to draw our attention from something more serious.Did he know anything of our suspicions of the conduct of those Indians this morning?""Not unless he gathered it from what Lord Reginald foolishly told him.We said nothing, of course," returned Captain Fleetwood, with a soldier's habitual distrust of the wisdom of the civil arm.
"That will do, gentlemen," said the colonel, as the officers dispersed; "send Cassidy here."The colonel was alone on the veranda as Cassidy came up.
"You followed Mr.Atherly to-day?"
"Yes sorr."
"And you saw him when he gave the message to the young lady?""Yes sorr."
"Did you form any opinion from anything else you saw, of his object in sending that message?""Only from what I saw of HIM."
"Well, what was that?"
"I saw him look afther the young leddy as she rode away, and then wheel about and go straight back into the wood.""And what did you think of that?" said the colonel, with a half smile.
"I thought it was shacrifice, sorr."
"What do you mean?" said the colonel sharply.
"I mane, sorr," said Cassidy stoutly, "that he was givin' up hisself and his sister for that young leddy."The colonel looked at the sergeant."Ask Mr.Forsyth to come to me privately, and return here with him."As darkness fell, some half a dozen dismounted troopers, headed by Forsyth and Cassidy, passed quietly out of the lower gate and entered the wood.An hour later the colonel was summoned from the dinner table, and the guests heard the quick rattle of a wagon turning out of the road gate--but the colonel did not return.An indefinable uneasiness crept over the little party, which reached its climax in the summoning of the other officers, and the sudden flashing out of news.The reconnoitring party had found the dead bodies of Peter Atherly and his sister on the plains at the edge of the empty wood.
The women were gathered in the commandant's quarters, and for the moment seemed to have been forgotten.The officers' wives talked with professional sympathy and disciplined quiet; the English ladies were equally sympathetic, but collected.Lady Elfrida, rather white, but patient, asked a few questions in a voice whose contralto was rather deepened.One and all wished to "do something"--anything "to help"--and one and all rebelled that the colonel had begged them to remain within doors.There was an occasional quick step on the veranda, or the clatter of a hoof on the parade, a continued but subdued murmur from the whitewashed barracks, but everywhere a sense of keen restraint.
When they emerged on the veranda again, the whole aspect of the garrison seemed to have changed in that brief time.In the faint moonlight they could see motionless files of troopers filling the parade, the officers in belted tunics and slouched hats,--but apparently not the same men; the half lounging ease and lazy dandyism gone, a grim tension in all their faces, a set abstraction in all their acts.Then there was the rolling of heavy wheels in the road, and the two horses of the ambulance appeared.The sentries presented arms; the colonel took off his hat; the officers uncovered; the wagon wheeled into the parade; the surgeon stepped out.He exchanged a single word with the colonel, and lifted the curtain of the ambulance.