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Page 57
The commandant was for some moments at a loss, for he
had not anticipated this difficulty. At length he resumed.
"Was it not to be absent without leave, that, when the
guard was all ready to be marched off, you were not to
be found?"
"Had the guard been marched off, or the parade even
formed, I should of course, have come justly under your
censure, Captain Headley; but it was not so--you ordered
the parade and guard-mounting for a later hour. I am here
at that hour."
"Hem!" returned the commandant, who was in some degree
obliged to admit the justice of the remark; "you defend
yourself more in the spirit of a lawyer, than of a soldier,
Mr. Ronayne, but all this difficulty is soon set at rest.
I require but your simple denial that you have been absent
from the Fort, within the last twenty-four hours. That
given, I shall be satisfied."
"And that, sir," was the firm reply of the youth, "I am
not disposed to give. I am not much versed in military
prudence, Captain Headley," he pursued, after a few
moments' pause, and in a tone of slight irony, which that
officer did not seem to perceive, "but at least sufficient
to induce me to reserve what I have to say for my defence.
You have charged me, sir, with having been absent from
the Fort without leave; and it is for you to prove that
fact before a competent authority."
"March off your guard, Mr. Ronayne," was the abrupt
rejoinder of the commandant, for he liked not the
continuation of a scene in which the advantage seemed
not to rest with him, but with the very party whom he
had sought to chasten; "Mr. Elmsley dismiss the parade.
I had intended promoting on the spot, Corporal Nixon and
private Collins for their conduct yesterday, but the
gross insubordination I have just seen, has caused me to
change my mind. Neither shall have the rank intended,
until the guilty parties are named. I give until the hour
of parade to-morrow for their production, and if, by that
time, their names are not laid before me, no such promotion
shall take place while I command the garrison. Dismiss
the men, sir. Here, Winnebeg, my good fellow, you have
come at a good moment. I have dispatches to send to
Detroit this very evening, and I know no one I can trust
so well as yourself."
"Good," was the answer, "Winnebeg always ready to do him
order--no angry more, gubbernor, with young chief,"
pointing to the ensign, as he moved off with his small
guard. "Dam good soger--you see dis?" and he touched his
scalping-knife with his left hand, and looked very
significantly.
"No, Winnebeg, not angry any more," was the reply; "but
how do you know him to be good soger? What has your
scalping-knife to do with it?"
"Winnebeg know all," said the chief gravely, as he laid
his heavy hand upon the shoulder of the commandant, "but
can't tell. Young chief say no, and Winnebeg love young
chief."
This remark forcibly struck Captain Headley, and brought
back to his mind, certain recollections. He, however,
asked no further question, but pointed, as they moved in
the direction of his own apartments, towards the sun,
showing by his gesture that it was not too early to take
the mid-day dram.
"Where the devil have you been, man, and with what
confounded impudence you got through the scrape," was
remarked at a distant part of the same ground, and at
the same moment with the conversation just given.
"How is Maria?" eagerly asked Ronayne. "When shall I see
her?"
"Well enough to hear all that passed between you and
Military Prudence," returned his friend; "but that is no
answer to my question."
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