A Wounded Name. Charles KingЧитать онлайн книгу.

      "That man Loring has made you out an innate blackguard, Nevins. You've got to plead for mercy," said his shrewd adviser, and Nevins saw the point and plead. He laid before the court letters from officers of rank speaking gratefully of his aid during the prevalence of yellow fever in the Gulf States. He begged the court to wait until he could show them the affidavits of many statesmen and soldiers, whom it would take months to hear from by mail, and there was then no telegraph in Arizona. He begged for time, for pity, and the court was moved and wrote to Drum Barracks for instructions, and adjourned until the answer came, which it did by swift stage and special courier within a week. "Advices from Washington say that the congressional backers of the accused have declared themselves well rid of him and suggest the extreme penalty of the law," and this being the advice of Washington it was simply human nature that the court should experience a revulsion of feeling and consider itself bound to see that the poor fellow was not made to suffer martyrdom. Most of the members were men from the volunteers or from the ranks. West Pointers were the exception, not the rule, in the line of the army for years after the war. Most of the court had been the recipients of Nevins' exuberant hospitality at one time or other. He had objected to the few who had lost heavily to him at cards, and the objection had been sustained, and when the last day for the long session arrived and a sad-eyed, pale-faced, scrupulously groomed and dressed accused arose before the dignified array and the little line of curious spectators, to make his last plea, a silence not unmixed with a certain sympathy, fell upon all hearers, as in low voice and faltering accents the friendless fellow began his story. Partly from manuscript, which he seemed to find hard reading, but mainly as an extemporaneous effort, his remarks were substantially as follows:

      "I've come to make a clean breast of it, gentlemen. I'm not fit to wear your uniform. I never was. I never wanted to. It was practically forced upon me by men who ought to have known better, who did know better, but who didn't care so long as they got me out of the way. My father as much as owned more than one congressman in York State. The Honorable Mr. Cadger, of the Military Committee, couldn't 'a been renominated if it hadn't been for him, and he didn't want me round home any more. He got me kept on bureau work long after all but a few volunteers were mustered out and shoved me down to New Orleans, where I'd often been steamboating before the war. I had the fever there when I was only twenty. Perhaps he thought I could get it again, and that would be the end of me. If there's a worse place for a young officer to start in than that infernal town was just after the war it ain't on the map o' these United States. I had the luck and the opportunities of the devil for nigh onto a year. I got more money and learned more ways of getting it than I knew how to use, and then I got married. A homeless woman, a woman with brains and good looks and education, married me for the position I could give her, I suppose. They told me afterward she did it out of spite or desperation; that she was a Northern girl who had been employed as governess in an old Southern family that was ruined by the war; that she had a younger sister in New York whom she was educating, a girl who had a magnificent voice and wanted to go on the stage, and all the money she could save went to her. She got employment when Ben Butler took command, for she knew all the Southern families, and who had money and plate and jewels, and who had nothing but niggers. She fell in love, they told me afterward, with a swell colonel who came there on staff duty, for he cut a dash and made desperate love to her until his wife got wind of it and came down there all of a sudden just after the smash-up of the Confederacy, and put a stop to his fun. That was in May, and I got there in July. We were married that winter, and I loaded her with the best I could buy and gave her all she could spend on her sister until she found out how my money was made there—in cotton and cards. She thought, and I'd let her think so, that I had big property in the North. It was another woman gave her the tip, and then the trouble began. She swore we must give up the house we lived in, the horses and carriage, and go to a cheap boarding-house. She got the jewelers to take back the watch and every trinket I'd given her—at their own valuation, about a quarter of what they cost me. She argued and pleaded and prayed, and swore she'd confess the whole thing to General Sheridan, who came there right after the riots of '66 and took command, and that would have sent me to the penitentiary. There were regular officers in the deals beside me, and they got wind of it and tried to bribe her; and she'd cry all night and mope all day, and swore she'd leave me unless I cut loose from the whole business and restored what I'd made. By God, I couldn't! I'd spent it! I was no worse than three or four others who had eyes open to their opportunities—two of 'em in the regular army now—bang-up swells, and at last I couldn't stand it and got to drinking, and then I lost my card nerve and the money went with it, and it made me desperate, crazy, I reckon; for one night when I came home drunk and she made a scene I suppose I must have struck her, and then she took sick and got delirious, and I was horribly afraid, and so were my partners, that she'd give up the whole business; so they got me leave of absence. They saw me aboard the steamer for New York. My money was running short, and they gave me enough to place her in a sanitarium on the Hudson and get her sister with her, and then I came back, and bad luck followed. I was strapped when the old man told me I'd have to go out and join my regiment, for he'd got me appointed in the regulars. Why, some of Sheridan's officers when they saw my name in the papers, wrote to stop it, but it was no use. The military committee in congress couldn't go back on Mr. Cadger, and he daren't go back on my father. But they got me sent out here to be as far away as possible; and yes, there were three deserters from Cram's battery aboard the steamer, so I learned, and one of them, the man you call Higgins, who was betrayed to Lieutenant Blake by another deserter just as bad as him, was staking the other two, for he had money in plenty until after I had done with him. What my life's been out here you know well enough; same as it was in New Orleans—all luck and plenty at first, then all a collapse. I'm ruined now. When I had hundreds and thousands I helped everybody who wanted it. There are men in Yuma and Tucson now whom I set on their pins, and they give me the cold shoulder. All that offer to the major was a bluff. They've got all my money. I haven't a cent anywhere, and so far as I'm personally concerned I don't care. If there was no one on earth dependent on me I'd as lief you'd shoot me to-morrow.

      "But, gentlemen, there's the rub. I own it now. There's my poor wife and her sister. I've lied to them both. She got well at the sanitarium. She's believed my promises and she's come all the way to San Francisco, and was expecting me there when—when the bottom fell out of the whole business. She's there now, she and her sister. They've got enough to pay their expenses perhaps a month or so, and that's all. I can make a living, I can get along and provide for her if you'll only give me a chance. I know I deserve dismissal. That's all right; but for God's sake, gentlemen, don't send me to Alcatraz—don't put me in jail, leave me free to work. There's men in this territory that owe me nearly a thousand dollars to-day. Let me gather that up and go to my wife—I—I—She's a good woman, gentlemen—" and here the tears came starting from the pleading culprit's eyes, and one or two sympathetic souls about the rude tables sniffed suspiciously. "It ain't for me to talk of such things. Perhaps you won't believe me, but—" and he fingered the leaves of the blue-bound copy of the regulations that lay to the left of the judge advocate's elbow, "I—I love that woman and I want to care for her, and take good care of her. Look here," he continued, as with sudden, impulsive movement he unbuttoned his trim-fitting, single-breasted frock coat and displayed a snowy shirt bosom on which sparkled and glistened a great diamond set in the style much affected by the "sporting gent" of the day. "See this diamond. It cost eleven hundred dollars in San Francisco six months ago; and here, this solitaire," and he produced from an inner pocket an unquestionably valuable ring and, with trembling hands, laid them upon the table in front of the judge advocate; "and here," and he whipped from the waistband of his trousers a massive and beautiful watch. "There are all the valuables I have in the world. These I place in the hands of the worthy officer and gentleman who has only done his duty in representing the government through this long and painful trial. These I publicly turn over to him with the request that he personally hand them to my poor wife as soon as he reaches San Francisco as earnest of my intention to lead an honest life and to care for her in the future. And now, gentlemen, I've nothing to ask for myself—nothing but liberty to go and work for her. I'm not fit to sit with such as you."

      He finished and, quivering as with suppressed emotion, turned his back upon the court, pressed his handkerchief to his streaming eyes and groped his way to the little table set apart for him a few yards to the left of the judge advocate. The silence among the members and along the benches