d!"

"Oh, for God's sake shut up!" spoke Cram, roughly, goaded beyond all
patience. "Doyle, answer me!" And he shook him hard. "You were at the
Pelican last night, and you saw Mr. Waring and spoke with him. What did
he want of you? Where did he go? Who were with him? Was there any
quarrel? Answer, I say! Do you know?" But maudlin moaning and
incoherencies were all that Cram could extract from the prostrate man.
Again the woman interposed, eager, tearful.

"Sure he was there, capt'in, he _was_ there; he told me of it whin I
fetched him home last night to git him out of the storm and away from
that place; but he's too dhrunk now to talk. Sure there was no gittin'
down here to barx for anybody. The cabman, sir, said no carriage could
make it."

"What cabman? That's one thing I want to know. Who is he? What became of
him?"

"Sure and how do I know, sir? He was a quiet, dacent man, sir; the same
that Mr. Waring bate so cruel and made Jeffers kick and bate him too. I
saw it all."

"And was he at the Pelican last night? I must know."

"Sure he was indade, sir. Doyle said so whin I fetched him home, and
though he can't tell you now, sir, he told me thin. They all came down
to the Pelican, sir, Waring and Lascelles and the other gintleman, and
they had dhrink, and there was trouble between the Frenchman and
Waring,--sure you can't blame him, wid his wife goin' on so wid the
loot'nant all the last month,--and blows was struck, and Doyle
interposed to stop it, sir, loike the gintleman that he is, and the
cab-driver took a hand and pitched him out into the mud. Sure he'd been
dhrinkin' a little, sir, and was aisy upset, but that's all he knows.
The carriage drove away, and there was three of thim, and poor Doyle got
caught out there in the mud and in the storm, and 'twas me wint out wid
Dawson and another of the byes and fetched him in. And we niver heerd of
the murther at all at all, sir, until I came down here to-day, that's
God's troot', and he'll tell ye so whin he's sober," she ended,
breathless, reckless of her descriptive confusion of Doyle and Divinity.

And still the Irishman lay there, limp, soggy, senseless, and at last,
dismayed and disheartened, the captain turned away.

"Promise to sober him up by reveille, and you may stay. But hear this:
if he cannot answer for himself by that time, out you go in the battery
cart with a policeman to take you to the calaboose." And then he left.

No sooner had his footstep