after the tattoo inspection of
his little guard, had gone for a few minutes to the hospital where
Mullins lay muttering and tossing in his feverish sleep; then, meeting
Wren and Graham on the way, had tramped over to call on Blakely,
thinking, perhaps, to chat a while and learn something. Soon after
"taps" was sounded, however, the youngster joined the little group
gossiping in guarded tones on the porch at Captain Sanders', far down
the row, and, in response to question, said that "Bugs"--that being
Blakely's briefest _nom de guerre_--must be convalescing rapidly, he
"had no use for his friends," and, as the lad seemed somewhat ruffled
and resentful, what more natural than that he should be called upon
for explanation? Sanders and his wife were present, and Mrs. Bridger,
very much alive with inquiry and not a little malicious interest.
Kate, too, was of the party, and Doty, the adjutant, and Mesdames
Cutler and Westervelt--it was so gloomy and silent, said these latter,
at their end of the row. Much of the talk had been about Mrs. Plume's
illness and her "sleep-walking act," as it had been referred to, and
many had thought, but few had spoken, of her possible presence on the
post of No. 5 about the time that No. 5 was stabbed. They knew _she_
couldn't have done it, of course, but then how strange that she should
have been there at all! The story had gained balloon-like expanse by
this time, and speculation was more than rife. But here was Duane with
a new grievance which, when put into Duane's English, reduced itself
to this: "Why, it was like as if Bugs wanted to get rid of me and
expected somebody else," and this they well remembered later. Nobody
else was observed going to Blakely's front door, at least, but at
eleven o'clock he himself could still be dimly heard and seen pacing
steadily up and down his piazza, apparently alone and deep in thought.
His lights, too, were turned down, a new man from the troop having
asked for and assumed the duties formerly devolving on the wretch
Downs, now doing time within the garrison prison. Before eleven,
however, this new martial domestic had gone upstairs to bed and
Blakely was all alone, which was as he wished it, for he had things to
plan and other things to think of that lifted him above the
possibility of loneliness.

Down the line of officers' quarters only in two or three houses could
lights be seen. Darkness reigned at Plume's, where Byrne was still
rooming. Darkness r