lestine I saw this moment scurrying in from the direction of the
wood-piles out yonder, I'm vastly mistaken, and she was talking with a
soldier there. I saw the glint of the sunset on the brasses of his
forage-cap. I thought they all had to be at retreat roll-call, but this
fellow missed it."

Turning at the foot of the stairs, he strode to the rear door, and
looked out through the side-light upon the unpicturesqueness of the
yards, the coal- and wood-sheds, the rough, unpainted board fences; the
dismantled gate, propped in most inebriate style against its
bark-covered post, and clinging thereto with but a single hinge. At
this half-closed aperture suddenly appeared the mulatto girl, stopped,
turned, gave a quick glance at the various back windows of Bedlam,
waved her hand to a dim, soldierly form just discernible in the
twilight striding toward the northern end of the garrison, then she
came scurrying to the door, and burst in, panting.

"Ah, Celestine! That you?" asked Holmes, pleasantly. "I thought to find
you in the dining-room, and stopped to ask for a glass of water."

At sight of him the girl had almost recoiled, but his cheery voice
reassured her.

"Laws, Mr. Holmes! I done thought 'twas a ghost," she laughed, but
turned quickly from him as she spoke and hurried into the dining-room,
filling a goblet with a trembling hand. He drank the water leisurely;
thanked her, and strolled with his accustomed deliberation through the
hall and out across the piazza, never appearing to notice her
breathlessness or agitation. Once outside the steps, however, his
deliberation was cast aside, and with rapid, nervous strides he
hastened up the walk,--out past the old ordnance storehouse and the
lighted windows of the trader's establishment, turned sharply to the
west, and, sure enough, coming toward him was a brisk, dapper,
slim-built little soldier in his snugly-fitting undress uniform. Holmes
stopped short, whipped out his cigar-case and wind-matches, thrust a
Partaga between his teeth, struck a light as the soldier passed him and
the broad glare from the north window fell full upon the dapper shape
and well-carried head. There was the natty forage-cap with the gleaming
cross-sabres; there was the dark face, there the heavy brows, the
glittering black eyes, the moustache and imperial, the close-curling
hair, of the very man he had seen peeping into the parlor windows back
of Mrs. Griffin's little post-office the night of hi