At eleven he was still peacefully snoring, when his man stepped up to his bed once more, and undertook such violent and persistent manipulations with the extremities of his master that the latter finally opened his eyes far enough to let a little daylight and some sense into his dazed brain. The bulky lieutenant stretched himself, yawned, and at last remembered his doings of the night before. With both mighty fists he hammered his thick skull in disgust and despair.

"Holy smoke—that— —— May bowl!" he groaned, and then sat down in the chair beside his couch to feel of his head, which seemed a gigantic bass drum, hollow and reverberating. Like a flash his desperate flirtation with the wife of his own squadron chief came back to his muddled consciousness.

Vaclav, his man,—whom he, for short, called Watz,—brought in his morning coffee, and after dressing with a great running commentary of grunts and groans, he sat down to drink a mouthful of the reviving decoction. But his brain was still in a whirl, and the scenes of a few hours ago passed rapidly, but in nebulous form, before his clouded inner vision.

Dimly he felt ashamed of himself. He knew he had not behaved like a gentleman, and he thought he remembered that somebody had witnessed the spectacle he had made of himself. Specht? Meckelburg? Or Mueller? No—he thought not. But Borgert? Yes, he thought it was Borgert. No, no. But who? He gave it up with another groan, and took a mouthful of the cold coffee.

Anyway, he had behaved in a beastly fashion. That he did know. But stop! Had she not told him how badly she was treated by her husband—how neglected—had she not appealed to his gallantry and friendship? He felt uncertain. All he knew with certainty was that he had been a brute.

He buried his head in his brawny hands.

How had it been possible for him so to forget himself?

He knew:—champagne luncheon with that fellow Borgert,—a fellow whose powers of consumption had never been ascertained. Then, at dinner, that heavy "Turk's blood"[7] to which Mueller had to treat because of a lost bet. And then, worst of all, that thrice-condemned May bowl! And hadn't they noticed it, the other fellows, and hadn't they filled him up notwithstanding, or rather because, they saw that he couldn't carry any more liquid conveniently? His big fist slammed the table.

[7] "Turk's blood" ("Tuerkenblut") is the name of a mixture of English porter, brandy, and French champagne very much in vogue in the army.—TR.

There was a knock at the door.

The man with the sore conscience and the sorer head bade the unknown enter.

It was First Lieutenant Borgert, helmet in hand. He pretended astonishment at the evident condition of his comrade, but eyed him sharply, and then said:

"Pardon me if I come inopportunely, but a rather delicate matter induces me to see you this morning."

"Officially or privately?" grunted Pommer.

"Both, if you wish it," answered the other.

"If a private matter I beg you will postpone it," said Pommer. "Let us talk about it some other day."

"I regret to say that I must insist on discussing the matter now," retorted Borgert, stiffly. "You are aware, of course, that as the elder man in the service I have the right, even the duty, to remonstrate with you if I see occasion for it."

Pommer reflected a moment. In years he was the other man's senior, and he had also visited a university for a triennium before joining the army, while the other had simply completed the easy curriculum of the military academy. But, true, Borgert was a twelvemonth ahead of him in actual service. So he silently submitted.

"All right, then; to what matter do you refer, sir?"

Borgert assumed the air of a grand inquisitor.

"Accident made me, last night, witness to a scene which I am sorry to say, Herr Comrade, I cannot otherwise describe than shocking. It was in the most secluded spot of the grounds near the Casino. The lady in question—"

"You need proceed no further, Herr Comrade. I know perfectly well that I am to blame."

"May I ask you for an explanation?"

"I was intoxicated. That is the sole explanation I can offer."

"A strange one. Why, if you cannot drink without losing your senses,—why, then, do you drink at all?"

"The fact that I was intoxicated was due in large measure to the very gentleman I am now addressing, who would not—"

"You need not go into such details," Borgert interrupted him. "You do not seem to understand the gravity of your offence, and it seems necessary that I should enlighten you as a younger comrade on that point."

Pommer felt indignant at this hypocritical lecture, but before he could reply to it Borgert continued:

"Your offence is the most serious against comradeship which can be conceived. Really, it would be my duty to call the attention of the lady's husband to it if I did not trust in your sense of honor to rectify the matter before any more mischief is done. If you will promise me to go at once and ask the lady's pardon, and to do all in your power to avoid any further cause for scandal, I will on my part forbear to mention what I saw. You must know, of course, that to tell Captain Kahle would mean a challenge, a duel, your enforced resignation from the army, and maybe your death,—for he is a good shot."

Borgert was very dramatic as he said this. The role of an austere prophet, calling a sinner to repentance and amends, had all the spice of novelty for him. Inwardly he smiled at himself, but outwardly he drew up his tall, sinewy frame to its full height, and cast a hypnotizing stare at the man before him, now slowly recovering his usual sober frame of mind. And as the sense of his wrong-doing began to overpower poor Pommer, he bowed his towzled head in misery. Two big tears crept slowly down his tanned cheeks.

Borgert went on:

"It is, of course, your duty to go at once to the outraged husband as well, and to confess your guilt. As I know Captain Kahle, he is not the man to withstand a direct appeal to his clemency if couched in appropriately contrite terms. If you will pledge me your word of honor to do as requested and to obtain the pardon of husband and wife, you may count on my silence."

Pommer glanced up. Tumultuous feelings were surging in his breast, and so rapid had been the revulsion from his first sentiments when Borgert had opened the conversation, that what was now uppermost in his mind was gratitude for this discreet and wise friend. He rose, and with a pathetic gesture stretched forth his great paw.

"Here is my hand," he said, with a hitch in his voice. "I promise."

Borgert clasped it a moment.

"Thanks, many thanks, for your sympathy and aid in this sorry business," the junior mumbled, and surreptitiously wiped a briny drop out of the corner of his eye.

Borgert left, very much satisfied with himself. He had now among the younger officers of the regiment another one who would henceforth swear by him. He noisily clanked down the shaky wooden stairs of the humble house wherein Pommer occupied narrow quarters. And Frau Kahle, too, was now in his power, he gleefully reflected. Besides all that, there was something positively piquant about the little adventure,—something which would frequently hereafter furnish him with pleasant innuendoes and hints, understood only by those immediately concerned, and which would supply him, Borgert, with an endless fund of amusement. He intensely enjoyed this propitious ending to his machinations.

Humming a tune, and feeling in the best of spirits, he went home, gave his servant sabre, cloak, and helmet, and mounted the stairs leading up to Frau Leimann's apartments.

She was not alone. The adjutant was present. Mueller, in fact, had shirked his duties to-day, the colonel being off on a hunting trip in the adjacent extensive forest, having been invited thereto by the royal head forester commanding that district. Frau Leimann greeted Borgert warmly, and while the latter and the adjutant stepped to the window, looking at the wife of Captain Koenig and Lieutenant Bleibtreu, who were riding past the house on horseback, Borgert seized the opportunity and deftly appropriated the pretty woman's hands, which he kissed passionately.

Then he told them of his interview with Pommer,—told it in such droll terms and with such an abundance of mimicry, that his two hearers could not help laughing immoderately. The picture of ungainly, rough Pommer being in the sentimental stage and a prey to a lacerated conscience was too exquisitely ludicrous.

Meanwhile Pommer sat at his desk, laboriously inditing a letter to his mother, to whom he opened his whole heart, as in duty bound. Several of the strongest passages in his letter were panegyrics on his new-won friend, Borgert, whom he limned in colors so brilliant that the original would indeed have had great trouble in recognizing himself in the portrait.

The lieutenant had by this time calmed down a good deal, and the blurred images of the past evening resolved themselves, one after another, into sane recollections. He now distinctly recalled the part in the ugly intrigue played by the woman; how she had skilfully led him on to make advances; how she had smiled encouragingly at his terms of endearment; how she had "fished" for dubious compliments, and how she had, above all, so alluringly made the most intimate confidences to him as to her marital troubles and as to her status of a femme incomprise. Really, he thought after quiet reflection, he himself was not so much to blame in this affair, disgraceful as it doubtless was when all was said and done. For the woman herself, a change of feeling took place simultaneously. The tender pity he had felt for her in his maudlin condition made room for something akin to contempt and dislike. She certainly could not be a pure woman, a faithful wife and mother, he thought, thus to invite, almost provoke, the passionate regard of a man much younger and less experienced than herself,—a man, too, whom she had known but slightly and conventionally hitherto. In his inmost consciousness he had almost absolved himself from guilt in the matter. And as to writing to her husband, or confronting him with the raw tale of her and his indiscretion, as Borgert had suggested, why, the more he thought of it, the less advisable a step it seemed to him, from every point of view. However, a promise was a promise, and he would keep it.

He donned his full regimentals, and issued forth at the right time for a visit of the kind.

He did not find Kahle himself in, he being still away at squadron drill. But his wife flew to meet him as soon as the parlor door had closed behind the announcing servant, and her reception was indeed such an affectionate and even enthusiastic one that the words of penitence perforce died on his lips. She drew him toward her on the low lounge, and exuberantly babbled on about the comfort, the delight his confidence had brought her. There was not the slightest word said by her to show that she had disapproved his approaches now that the glamour of the moment, the enervating effects of close communion in the warm air of a spring night, were gone. Coquettishly she plied all her wiles to captivate poor Pommer anew. His pulses hammered, his senses were aflame; but he remained master of himself, and sternly he resolved to sever these equivocal relations with a woman whom he could no longer respect. The weak, purblind man had been steeled against further temptation by seeing a few hours ago the abyss yawning at his feet, in which an illicit love had threatened to engulf him forever. The image of his mother, noble type of womanhood, rose before his mind, and he remained strong.

Frau Kahle, on her part, at last becoming convinced that all her arts were thrown away on this iceberg, suddenly changed her tactics, and dismissed her visitor in somewhat abrupt fashion. She swept from the room, leaving him to find his way out. Only the intoxicating perfume which she used by preference lingered a moment longer in the close air of the room as the lieutenant sought his way out; but despite a curious feeling of defeat which he could not help instinctively feeling, there was subdued exultation in his heart. His brow was serene as, at the next crossing of the street, he encountered Borgert, who hailed him:

"Well, Pommer," he shouted satirically, "how is your headache? And how did you find things at Kahle's?—everything forgiven?"

"Oh, yes, everything forgiven," answered Pommer, demurely, without going into any further details.

"Excellent. Was a wise thing for you to do to take counsel with an elder comrade, my dear fellow. Well, I am glad for your sake everything ended well."

"Yes, thanks to you," said Pommer; and the two shook hands and parted.

Pommer went home, well satisfied with himself.

He fancied that all was now over between him and Frau Kahle. His acquaintance with women of her stamp had never been extensive, and to read the soul of one so utterly false and grossly sensual as this inveterate coquette, was quite beyond the ability of Lieutenant Pommer, analysis of his own or anybody else's character not being his strong point.

He had, however, miscalculated Frau Kahle's fascinations over his unsophisticated self, and decidedly underestimated her craving for admiration. He was made aware of this when he next met her, on the day following. She greeted him with a smile so bewitching and a half-expressed sense of intimacy so flattering to his amour propre, that he was unable to resist. Soon these two became the talk of the little town. No matter if Pommer, looking at his inner self within the quiet retreat of his own bachelor quarters, bitterly bewailed his renewed fall from grace, her influence over the coarser fibre in his being easily triumphed over his qualms of conscience.

He frequently met Borgert during this period, but the latter, far from training once more on him the battery of his eloquence, contented himself with some facetious remark or with a Mephistophelian grin. And for Kahle himself, he was probably the only one in the garrison—as is the fate of husbands too often in such cases—who was not in the slightest aware of the "goings-on" of his nominal partner in the joys and sorrows of life. And, besides, his tasks as chairman of the Casino's house committee kept him, together with his official duties, practically away from home all day long, and frequently far into the night.

Pommer was, as we have seen, not precisely of delicate stuff, either bodily or in his psychic makeup. But the chains he was wearing nevertheless galled him, and he not seldom manoeuvred with his charmer to obtain release; but all in vain. More than once he thought seriously of writing to Captain Kahle himself, confessing his guilt, glossing over her own share of it, and offering all the reparation in his power. That would mean, of course, exposing his own precious life to the unerring bullet of the captain; but even that outlook appeared to him preferable to his present life of deceit. He now regretted that he had not followed, the morning after the Casino hop, his first impulse of making a clean breast of it to Captain Kahle. Thus weeks dragged on, and there was no prospect of a change in a situation which gradually became intolerable to him.

But suddenly, without his having done anything to bring it about, the day came that granted him escape from his degrading entanglement. The imperial order arrived, promoting him to the grade of First Lieutenant and transferring him to another garrison, far in the interior of the country.

She was the first person he informed of it.

"Farewell! We shall not see each other again!" He spoke quite coolly, almost callously, and he left her cowering on the sofa and weeping hysterically. He felt a free man again. The abominable shackles had fallen from him.

If he had seen Frau Kahle five minutes after he had left her he would not even have retained for her a vestige of that first tenderness that had swept over him that night in the Casino garden. For when he had retired, and she had heard his step on the flagging of the hall below, she had quickly risen and peered, from behind the lace curtains, into the street after his vanishing figure. Then she had sat down at the piano and intoned a merry Strauss waltz.

But then she reflected that they might call her heartless. So she had indited a long, passionate farewell letter to him. He showed it, the night before his going, to Borgert at the Casino. They were all his guests that night. Borgert had screamed with laughter.

"What a devilish smart little woman she is, after all," he had exclaimed. And then, poising in mid-air his champagne glass, he said, nodding to Pommer:

"Here's to her and her simpleton!"

He spoke from experience.



CHAPTER IV

THE CASE OF SERGEANT SCHMITZ

Late in the forenoon of a raw day in autumn Vice-Sergeant-Major Roth was seated in his comfortably heated room, and near him Sergeant Schmitz. Each was enjoying a cup of coffee.

The quarters occupied by Roth were situated on the second story of the regimental barracks, and made at first sight the impression of elegance and almost wealth, precisely as though the occupant were a member of the upper ten thousand.[8] It required a closer examination to become convinced that a good deal of these apparently costly trappings, as well as the furniture and wall decorations, was not what it seemed, and that, to produce by all means the effect sought for, taste and appropriateness had been sacrificed. The wall paper of arabesques in green and blue, which the government had furnished, did not harmonize with the hangings or carpets. The paintings on the wall were cased in heavy gilt or oak frames, so unskilfully placed as to conceal in spots the very wall itself. Above the scarlet plush sofa hung a reproduction of Lenbach's "Prince Bismarck," and to right and left of it abominable oil chromos representing horses. Against the opposite wall stood a piano in stained oak, showing glittering silver-plated candelabra. Neither Roth himself nor his worthy better half, formerly saleswoman in a shop, possessed the slightest knowledge of the art of manipulating such an instrument. But there was a story connected with this showy piece of furniture—a story that even now, years after the events themselves occurred, brought tears of rage to the eyes of the "Vice." To the young corporal of his own squadron who on Sunday afternoons strummed on the piano, he used to say in pathetic accents, that those "one year's volunteers"[9] had treated him most outrageously; and from his own point of view he was probably right.

[8] A vice-sergeant-major in the German cavalry receives in legitimate pay and emoluments and rations, if married, about one dollar per day. But it is notorious that peculations, hush money, and bribes from privates often swell his income to ten times that amount.—TR.

[9] "One year's volunteers" are those young soldiers in the German army who, by reason of superior education and because they pay for their own uniforms and accoutrements, serve but one year in the active army. They belong, of course, mostly to the well-to-do classes, and generally are promoted to the rank of officers in the reserves.—TR.

During the first year of their married life the "Frau Vice-Sergeant-Major," full of a sense of her new dignity, had painfully felt the lack of an "upright" or, better still, a "grand," inasmuch as she regarded such an instrument as an irrefutable evidence of belonging to the higher walks of life. She asserted, besides, that in her girlhood she had received instruction on the piano,—an assertion which nobody was able to dispute because that period lay about a generation back. She admitted that she had forgotten whatever of piano playing she might ever have known; but she felt quite sure that a piano in her parlor would restore the lost nimbus, and then—perhaps the most potent reason of all—the wife of her husband's "colleague" in the second squadron owned a piano, and had taken great care to let her know the fact soon after she had become Frau Roth.

Roth himself, probably under the influence of his partner's urgings, had frequently and with due emphasis spoken to that year's crop of "one year's men" about the great musical talents of his wife, now, alas! lying fallow for want of a piano of her own, and he had coupled these remarks with plaints that the smallness of his resources prevented the purchase of such an instrument. These remarks, coming from one who had it virtually in his power to obtain for each one of the "one year's men" promotion after the fall manoeuvres, had at last borne fruit. One day the aforesaid stained oak piano had been unloaded at Roth's door, accompanied by a round-robin from the volunteers themselves, in which they waxed duly enthusiastic over his wife's imaginary musical proficiency. Of course, the supposed gift had been accepted, and of course every one of the supposed donors was advanced in rank the following autumn, due to Roth's brilliant testimonials of their prowess and exceptional fitness for a higher grade.

Roth never saw these "one year's men" again, but about a week after their departure from the regiment a cart stopped before his door, and the driver said he had come to take the piano back to the factory, the term of pre-paid hire having expired. Decidedly a dirty trick on the part of these young fellows, all the more so as Frau Roth had by this time bragged so much about her piano to every one of her female friends and neighbors, to whom she had represented it as a belated wedding gift from a far-away uncle! The couple agreed it would never do to return the instrument to the makers, and thus it was that the Roths were still paying for this piano in monthly instalments, one "gold fox"[10] each time, a number of years afterwards, with quite a long time yet to run. No reasonable person will blame Vice-Sergeant-Major Roth for the aforementioned tears of rage.

[10] "Gold fox," a slang term for the German twenty-mark gold pieces.—TR.

Hanging above the piano, one could admire a huge steel engraving of Vernet's "Funeral Banquet," also in an expensive frame (the gift of a parting young soldier, son of a wealthy farmer); while antlers, Japanese fans, a peacock's tail, etc., helped to produce a somewhat incongruous ensemble. There was a pretty mahogany stand, on the various shelves of which stood a large china punch-bowl, six green Rhine-wine glasses (both gifts from other "grateful" recruits). There was also a solid oak writing-table, on one corner of which Frau Roth had stood the cages for her canary birds, just then in the interesting stage of breeding, and therefore voiceless. A huge portrait of the Kaiser, with two crossed sabres and a pair of pistols under it, and a cuckoo clock were exhibited on the wall close by. There was also a big flower table, but on near view it was seen that its fine roses and tulips had not originated in a hothouse, but under the scissors of an artist in tissue paper.

On the floor were to be seen two white goat-skins and three small mats of domestic make, as well as a genuine Kelim (gift from "one year's men"), and a thick plush table-cover, as well as plush draperies, helped to make an impression which, combined as it was of so many ill-fitting details, was far from the one intended.

Glancing at the lowering sky through the east windows of this room, big, shapeless clouds of gray could be observed slowly driving along; it looked, in fact, like a cheerless and stormy ocean, monotonous in its uniform tint. Now and then showers of cold hail or rain tore away from this chaos, and, pitched hither and thither by howling winds, swept across the town or over the desolate fields.

When the rain thus whipped the window-panes and the boisterous west wind whistled and roared in the stove-pipe, it was, by very contrast, all the more comfortable in this warm, cosy room, where one felt like humanely pitying the poor comrades, now far out on the parade field, drilling for dear life in the open.

This was the time of year when the regiment ordered into a shorter or longer term of renewed active service its reserve men, who were then temporarily quartered in the sheds and loosely constructed pavilions erected behind the barracks proper. At such a time and in such weather it was by no means pleasant to be out on the drill grounds for the space of a whole afternoon, and then, returning, to find one's quarters cold, dripping with rain; and to stand shivering in clothes and boots thoroughly soaked. Those corporals and sergeants detailed for the instruction of recruits under the roof of the big barracks hall, and those told off for stable or other indoor service, were well off in comparison.

For the non-commissioned officers generally, however, and especially for Roth, there was profit connected with the annual recall of the reserves; for it meant increased pay, and it meant a great increase in pickings of every kind. Roth had been detailed as sergeant-major for the first reserve squadron, and he was glad of it. There were among these reserves a number of men he knew to be "flush" of money, and whom he understood how to handle. There were also some "one year's men," who, nearly all of them, had open hands and well-filled pockets. By shutting an eye, or maybe both sometimes, thus easing the severe discipline for them, he was sure, at the end of their brief term of supplementary service, to have the larger portion of their "gold foxes" in his own pocket. Roth was, therefore, with such prospects before him, in the best of spirits. He was likewise in a confidential mood.

Schmitz was "foddermaster" of the fourth squadron and detailed to the reserve squadron for the time being. He was a very competent man. Whoever wished to convince himself of that needed but to visit the horses belonging to his squadron. He would have seen them with silky coat, round in limb, and full of dash and life, standing above their fetlocks in the clean, shining straw. His stable, too, was always a model of neatness and cleanliness. Even the walls were always well whitewashed and the grated windows shining. Sergeant Schmitz, in fact, made a labor of love of his duties.

When he went down the main aisle of his big stable, and then turned and walked between the rows of his smooth-coated darlings, it was amusing to see these animals, all of them at once recognizing his step, his voice, his touch; how they turned their heads around, whinnying and glancing affectionately at him if he called to one or the other of his favorites.

There was, for instance, Clairette, a charming little roan, which followed him like a dog, and with her nostrils forever sniffed at his pockets for sugar, and then rose on her hind legs or lifted her left foreleg beggar-fashion. There was the "Ahnfrau," a dainty little horse, though old as the hills, with a coat black as sloes, and which because of long faithful service and because of the shrewd wisdom that comes with age, was in favor with the whole regiment and was often fed some sweet morsel. The special pride of the foddermaster, however, was the "twelve Chinamen." They had been bought in China, had then gone through the campaign against the Boxers, had had their share in the capture of Peking, and had then, at the close of the Far Asiatic War, been enrolled in the regiment. They were fine, powerful horses, with shining coats and strong bones, even if some of them did not reach the height of "Peiho," "Woo," and "Kwangsue," but were, strictly speaking, but ponies. Each one of the horses had its special claim on the affections of this man who now sat chatting with his "Vice" at the table.

Just then Frau Roth entered, carrying a tray neatly covered with a snowy napkin, on which stood a bottle of fragrant Moselle wine, three glasses, and a narrow box of cigars.

"The devil! You're living high, Roth! I wish I had such easy times myself. What's up?" said Schmitz, in amazement.

"I have my birthday anniversary but once a year," remarked Roth, sententiously, "and on such occasions it's worth while spending something."

His wife poured the wine into the green "Roemer,"[11] and each of the three raised a glass of wine whose delicious, flower-like perfume and whose straw-yellow color told them that this noble grape-juice had been distilled by the sun on one of the favored hills rising steeply along the banks of the upper Moselle. Then they cried, "Prosit" and clinked, so that the fine glass emitted a bell-like sound. Then they sipped with the air of connoisseurs. The little scene was an unconscious imitation of similar ones they had often noticed the officers of the garrison enact with a certain solemnity. In wine-growing countries they enshroud with a time-honored ceremonial the ceremony of drinking wine of quality.

[11] "Roemer," the name of prettily shaped glasses, usually of amber or emerald hue, in which Rhine and Moselle wines are served.—TR.

The two men lit their cigars, each bearing the well-known narrow band of a famous importing firm, and next they refilled their glasses. They had another hour until the time for the evening stable service should come, and there was nothing to do meanwhile, for First Lieutenant Specht, temporarily in command of the reserve squadron, never appeared during the afternoon service. Hence, there would be no disturbance.

"Will you be off on leave at Christmas?" asked Roth of his friend.

"Don't know yet," Schmitz replied, with a shrug of his shoulders. "I should like to, for I haven't been outside this dirty hole of a town for two years; but it is hardly worth my while to undertake such a long trip for the few days, for I don't suppose I should get more than a week off, and it takes me forty-eight hours to reach my home—it's at the other end of the world, you know—and that much to return. So I should have but a couple of days to myself, after all my trouble and expense."

"What is the fare?" asked Roth.

"About thirty marks, and I haven't that much to spare."

Roth laughed disdainfully.

"Such a trifle only! Ho ho ho!"

"Well, you can laugh, of course," retorted Schmitz, good-naturedly. "It wouldn't mean anything to you. But suppose you haven't got that much money, what then?"

"I'll lend you that trifle," said the "Vice," pompously.

"Say, you must have been winning in the lottery, old friend! You're spending money like water for some time past. Every short while you're making a run into town; you're smoking genuine Havanas; and you're even ready to lend money! At the very least you must have come into an inheritance."

"No, mine is not dead men's money," Roth sneered. "All it takes is to be shrewd and to gather up all the money that crosses your path."

"I suppose you've slain a rich Jew!"[12]

[12] "Slain a rich Jew," a German phrase for "suddenly acquired wealth."—TR.

"Not precisely," said Roth, mysteriously.

"Well, I don't catch your meaning," put in the other.

Roth winked at his wife and then at Schmitz, to show that she was not to hear his confidences; but when she rose immediately after, to fetch another bottle of wine, he said in whispers:

"I'll tell you, if you want to know; but—" he put his index finger significantly to his mouth—"Mum's the word!"

"Oh, of course; don't be afraid. I never betray my pals!"

"Well, then, I will tell you. This is the second time I am in command of the reserves. Last time we had a whole lot of one year's volunteers amongst them, mostly well-to-do farmer boys. You remember 'Fatty' Kramer, that swine, and Rossbach, whose father at home has twelve horses in the stable, and Scheller, the fellow who was always running after the girls, and that whole crowd? Fellows of that sort, you see, don't know what to do with their money, and I wouldn't be such an ass as to give them their pay, their uniform allowance, and so on; they don't care about those measly few coins. Scheller, besides, gave me a chance to make some money outside of that. The last night before he had finished his two years, I happened to inspect his quarters, it being considerably past taps. And what do I see but this very fellow, Scheller, together with—well, you know—and as I was just about to raise the deuce, he whispers in my ear: 'Don't say anything, please!' Well, then, I kept my mouth shut, and at noon the following day there was a 'blue rag'[13] in my overcoat pocket."

[13] "Blue rag," German slang term for bank notes of large amount.—TR.

"The deuce you say! What luck! But supposing these fellows afterwards give you away, especially if they don't get their promotions?"

"Oh, they won't say anything; they are glad enough if they can stay away from the army. As to promotions, most of them were not the kind to think about such a thing."

"Well, I in your place should be afraid there might be trouble some time, and then think what a rumpus there would be!"

"Leave me alone for that. Just now there are a couple more of these rich, stupid fellows; there is the son of a butcher in Brunswick whose father must be worth a million or so, and the others, too, have lots of money to burn. What do you suppose I'll make out of them before they leave the squadron? They are worth at least a couple of hundred apiece to me. Well, Prosit!" They clinked glasses.

The glasses rang out harmoniously, and the next instant they were emptied of the last drops.

"How do you like this stuff? Costs six marks the bottle! Of course, I didn't pay for it,"—with another wink.

"Horribly expensive; where did you get it?"

"Last year, you remember, that one year's volunteer, Hoch? When he wanted to become sergeant, I did my best for him with the Chief, and so he got the chevrons. And he was not ungrateful. A whole box of wine—two dozen of these bottles. Pretty decent, wasn't it?"

"You're lucky, sure enough!"

"You see, my friend, how these things must be done. Always practical: that's my motto. Last year, for instance, I had charge of the mess provisions. The butcher put in a good many bones now and then, and I don't think that he ever gave over-weight. Naturally, I was after him, and the result was a 'blue rag' every week from him, and my family meat didn't cost me a red, either."

Roth broke into a hearty laughter. He slapped his pocket jocularly, and the jingling sound of gold and silver met their ears. Then he gulped down another glassful of the delicious wine.

"Why don't you drink, Schmitz? I suppose you are full."

"As to that, no; that takes longer. Prosit!"

In this style the conversation proceeded, and when they had emptied their third bottle it was very evident that they had drunk about as much as was good for them. Their eyes had assumed a glassy stare, and their faces were scarlet. Moreover, their speech was loud and blustering, and Roth, particularly, was unable longer to talk coherently, except with difficulty.

Suddenly he looked at the clock. "Six, by thunder. Time to look after the stables!"

"Yes, let's go," said Schmitz; "we must get to the stables, the beasts are hungry!"

They arose reeling. Roth girded his loins with his sabre, and both of them went clattering down the stone stairs of the barracks. The sabre struck the steps all along, as Roth descended heavily, and there was a terrific noise.

Several soldiers stuck out their heads as the two went along; and when they noticed their intoxicated superiors they quickly retreated into their own rooms, saying: "They surely have enough! If one of us went about in that way we'd be ripe for a pretty long term in the cooler."

At the turn of the corridor Dietrich, a good-service man belonging to the fourth squadron, stepped up to Roth and said: "I'd like to ask the Herr 'Vice' for some coal for Room X. My men have been out in the rain foraging, and all of us are wet to the skin. It is very cold upstairs, and unless we can heat the stove our clothes will not dry till to-morrow."

"What! Coal? Go to the quartermaster, you loafers; I haven't any coal for you!" spluttered Roth with a heavy tongue.

"The quartermaster has gone to town, and the Herr 'Vice' keeps the keys to the cellar in such cases!"

"Get out of my way, you —— fool! You don't need coal every time a few drops of rain fall. Lie down in bed, you pack of swine, if you are cold, and leave me alone with your impudent complaints."

Dietrich stood for a moment in doubt, not knowing whether it would be safe to make another rejoinder. But he saw plainly that the "Vice" was in an irresponsible condition, and so silently, but with rage in his heart, he turned on his heels so that the spurs jingled, and went back to his men.

In the stables hardly anybody remained, the men having attended to their duties and retired. Only the stable guard was to be seen.

For stable guards men are taken, by preference, whose health has suffered in the hard service at this inclement season. One of them had incipient consumption, the regimental surgeon having noticed the man's condition only a week after his joining the squadron, and now the colonel thought it was not worth while discharging the man. The second one of these reserves had, since his civilian life, nursed himself so well as to have acquired a regular paunch, so that the quartermaster had been unable to fit him with any of the uniforms, and the man, put into a soiled canvas suit, had been permanently assigned to stable duty. The third of this interesting trio was something of an idiot, hailing from the Polish districts. He grinned like a maniac, and he was entirely unfit for drill or any other kind of service that required even the faintest degree of intelligence; but, having been laborer with a Polish peasant, he knew how to handle horses and to clean the stable. He addressed, in his broken German, everybody, including the officers, as "Thou," and doffed his cap in token of military salute.

The foddermaster felt frightened when he became aware that feeding time was already considerably past, for he regarded the horses under his care with great affection. He therefore called up the stable guards and hurried them with a "Quick, now, you lazybones!" The fodder wagon was loaded with oats and chopped straw and then pushed into the main aisle of the stable. The creaking of this vehicle was for the horses the most joyful music every day. As soon as the sound struck their ears they became lively, raised their heads, craned their necks, and turned around, as far as their halters would permit, to watch the operation. They evidently had thought themselves forgotten to-night, and there was a keen edge to their appetites, so that some of them became a little unruly, kicking, neighing, and nipping at their neighbors out of sheer sportiveness. "Napoleon," the ancient stallion, had been devoured by such an acute sensation of hunger that as soon as the fat guard aforementioned came near him with the measure he tore it out of the man's hands and gave him such a push against his paunch that the guard dropped the oats and, pressing both hands against the injured part, ran out into the aisle.

Roth, watching things, saw this incident, and shouted to him:

"Go on, you lazy lubber, pick the stuff up again! Your fat carcass won't be damaged by such a little blow!"

The fat individual, however, made no move to obey, but continued to hold his paunch, while tears of pain stood in his eyes, and his face assumed a livid hue. Roth strode up to him and began to belabor him with both fists, showering hard blows on neck and head. Then, grasping him by the throat, Roth turned the man's head around and administered such a well-aimed blow on his nose as to draw blood. Under this punishment the ungainly soldier rose with difficulty, then bent down and began to collect the overturned oats. Roth, however, in his drunken fury gave the man a kick with his heavy boot, sending him against "Napoleon," whose hind legs he embraced in an effort to maintain his equilibrium.

But that was more than "Napoleon" would stand. First he didn't get his oats, and then such practical jokes! He struck out with both hoofs, hitting the poor devil of a guard against some of the most sensitive portions of his anatomy, and hurling him into the aisle like one dead.

Roth was frightened. Fortunately for him nobody had seen the incident, for Schmitz, with the other two men, happened just then to be busy at the other end of the stable. So he merely called the other two reserve men, and made them carry his unconscious victim to the reserve quarters close by. The whole business, though, was very disagreeable to him, for the poor fellow had been hit hard.

When the first lieutenant the next morning asked why the injured man had been taken to the hospital, Roth answered:

"He was too clumsy in handling the horse,—frightened it, and the beast naturally struck out. I understand he has got a good-sized hole in his head."

"What a beastly fool," scolded the officer. "By rights the fellow ought to be put in jail besides, as he will only spoil our horses." But that was the next morning. On the evening in question, as soon as the accident had happened, Roth felt in worse temper than ever. He looked around for some one on whom to vent his spleen.

He looked in the fodder chest.

"Give the rest to 'Zeus'; he hasn't got quite enough, and he looks as lean as a goat," he said to Schmitz.

"No," Schmitz retorted; "he won't get any more. He has got enough—more than is good for him,—and this morning he struck out and hit a man. The horses are getting crazy, standing all the time in the stable and munching their oats."

"Oh, give it to him anyway; he can stand it!"

"But why? It's nonsense!"

Roth had a new access of fury; nothing enraged him as much as to be contradicted.

"Give him the rest, I say!" he said roughly to Schmitz.

But Schmitz shut the lid of the chest and answered shortly:

"I'm glad when I can save some fodder!" And with that he pushed away the cart.

Roth, quite beside himself, shouted:

"Sergeant Schmitz, you will not carry out my orders? I shall report you."

In saying which he left the foddermaster in a huff, went with uncertain steps and with black mien through the stable to his own quarters, drank a big glassful of raw spirits "to quiet his nerves," and then threw himself full-clad on the bed.

The two guards in the stable, who had observed these occurrences with considerable interest, stuck another handful of hay in front of each horse, and then lay down on the straw in the corner of the stable to sleep. Sergeant Schmitz, however, went to his room, completely sobered.

The following noon the orderly transmitted to the reserve squadron of the regiment a document reading as follows:

REPORT

On the occasion of the stable service last night Vice-Sergeant-Major Roth gave to Foddermaster Sergeant Schmitz a formal order, which the latter did not carry out. When the said Vice-Sergeant-Major Roth emphatically repeated the order, the aforementioned Schmitz refused once more to comply therewith. This happened in the presence of the stable guards, and it is charged by the aforesaid Roth that Sergeant Schmitz was at the time in an intoxicated condition.

SPECHT,

First Lieutenant and Squadron Chief of the 2d Reserve Squadron.

The foddermaster happened to be seated at his noon meal, when the sergeant-major stepped up, announced his arrest to him, and took him to the lock-up. There he was to remain until sentence should be pronounced in his case, for his offence had been officially designated as "Peremptory refusal of obedience in the presence of men assembled." As such "men assembled" the two guards of the stable were regarded in the eyes of the law.

The incident was reported from mouth to mouth throughout the regiment, and by far the greater majority were indignant at Roth's action. Even the officers themselves declared unanimously that such a superior as Roth ought to be got rid of.

But Roth thought he had done something heroic, and seemed great in his own eyes. When off duty he declared he liked comradeship, and was ever ready for a good joke, not taking offence at anything. But when on duty, why, the devil, they should see that he was not to be trifled with. Every species of intimacy or friendship was at an end when on duty. Then it was: I order, and you have to obey, else I'll break your neck!

And Sergeant Schmitz all this time was in his gloomy, cold cell. Lifeless and broken in courage, he was staring at the rough stone flagging through the long hours of the day. He thought he was dreaming, and could not or would not believe that he was behind lock and key because of a military offence. Why, he had nine long years of service behind him, in which he had conducted himself blamelessly, never having been punished for a day.

Slowly, indeed, the seriousness of the situation dawned on him, and with this consciousness grew up a violent hatred of the man whom he had deemed his friend, and who now, under the influence of alcoholic rage was about to destroy the fruits of all his life and those he had counted to garner in the future. But he would show the regiment, once he was a free man again, what a low character the fellow really had, and how behind his hypocritical and insinuating manners were concealed systematic dishonesty and fraudulent practices. Nobody should be deceived by him again. He, Schmitz, would take care of that.

That he was to be court-martialed seemed to be beyond question. And as a matter of fact he was charged, as he knew, with "peremptory refusal to obey"; but the trial must certainly show that the peculiar circumstances of his offence were of such a character as to deprive it of all seriousness, and that really there had been but an exchange of words which, although an official character might be attributed to it, could not possibly be viewed with great severity when once all the facts had been established. He counted, of course, among these facts his intimate intercourse with Roth; but this point would have to be clearly and skilfully brought out at the trial, for on that hinged the issue.

Sergeant Schmitz prayed, therefore, formally, in a petition to the regiment, for legal counsel, and at the same time for permission to enter with such counsel into oral and written communication.

He was amazed when informed a few days later that legal counsel could be provided by military courts only in those cases where the defendant was accused of a crime. On the other hand, the communication said, there was no objection to his retaining a suitable lawyer, but of course at his own expense.

But where get the money for such a lawyer? Schmitz's slender means and those of his parents at home were by no means sufficient for the purpose, and yet he felt that he had no chance in his defence if he were to face the judges of the military court, and Roth himself, whose persuasive powers of language he knew so well. He would be unable, with his very insufficient command of language, to enlighten the court in an impressive manner as to intimate details. Somehow, therefore, the money must be raised.

After three weeks of preliminary confinement, the term was at last fixed at which the trial was to take place. Schmitz felt that he could await its issue with a clear conscience. Even his counsel had told him that an unfavorable end was not to be expected, as soon as the judges had been made acquainted with the circumstances preceding the actual trifling occurrence in the stable. Schmitz expected, therefore, that the term at which he was to be tried would also be the day of regaining his liberty; for the last few weeks, what with suffering from hardships, from the insufficient and coarse jail diet, and from worry, had been terrible ones indeed for him.

Even the formal indictment drawn up against him, of which a copy had been sent him, could not repress his hopes. He knew that in such a document everything concerning him and his offence was naturally represented in the darkest colors, so as to leave the judge-advocate sufficient grounds on which to bring the proceedings against him to the point of actual trial.

The document read:

"Proceedings have been opened against Sergeant Ferdinand Julius Schmitz, on motion to that effect, because of an offence against Paragraph 94 of the Military Criminal Code.

"Although the defendant maintains that he has been on particularly friendly terms with Vice-Sergeant-Major Roth, that would in no way justify him in disobeying an order issued while in the performance of duty. On the contrary, his refusal to obey two peremptory and emphatic orders, given in the presence of the stable guard, and therefore before men assembled, was a most glaring instance of insubordination.

"The excuse of defendant, that he was in an excited condition by reason of indulgence in alcoholic liquors, in nowise exculpates him. The circumstance that his offence has been committed while intoxicated during the performance of his duty, is rather an additional reason for increasing the measure of his punishment.

"Defendant will be tried by court-martial."

That sounded indeed very dangerous, just as if he were a criminal of the deepest dye,—he, who for nine years had conducted himself blamelessly. He was almost tempted to laugh at this accusation, which seemed to him so strongly tinctured with prejudice.

On October 20th, at noon precisely, the trial began.

The judges had come to town from the seat of the command of the army corps. With faces severe and forbidding, they sat at a long table,—a major, a captain, a first lieutenant, a judge-advocate to conduct the proceedings according to the statutes, and a second one to conduct the prosecution.

After Schmitz had given an intelligent account of the facts, Roth was called as witness. He represented the affair in the most glaring colors, denied all friendship with the defendant, and likewise denied in the strongest language that he also had been intoxicated, as Schmitz had stated. By hook or crook he had gained over as witnesses for his sober condition on that evening the invalid afflicted with lung trouble, and likewise the Pole. The latter, because of the semi-idiotic state of his mind, and because of his insufficient knowledge of German, he had instructed to simply nod his head to all the questions asked him. As luck would have it, it so happened that the questions put to this witness were of a kind to which his mute nods were the answers most unfavorable to the defendant. The wonder was, however, that the court made no objection to such testimony. Finally the "Vice" swore, with a voice shaken by no tremor, to the truth of his deposition.

This, of course, was an unexpected turn in the affair. Schmitz had not expected, and he had not forearmed himself against such a tissue of lies. His hopes sank considerably when he noticed that the major, as chairman of the commission, was shaking his head in grave disapproval on hearing the unfavorable testimony.

Next followed the address of the prosecuting judge-advocate, which conformed in almost every detail to the substance of the act of accusation.

Then Schmitz's counsel arose. In eloquent words he described the event as it had actually occurred, weighed the peculiar circumstances, and pointed with great emphasis to the former intimacy of accuser and defendant,—an intimacy the existence of which had been corroborated by several witnesses who had deposed during the preliminary stage of the case. Lastly, he made as much as he could out of the fact that the whole occurrence had been an outgrowth of a friendly birthday celebration. In consideration of all these things, and also because of the irreproachable conduct of the defendant for so many years of active service, he moved for his acquittal.

The court-martial then retired for deliberation, and a long time elapsed before its members, wearing a severe aspect, reappeared in the session chamber.

Schmitz was in a dazed condition when he heard the sentence: two months of jail!

He saw his life destroyed. In vain had been the long years which he had given, at the sacrifice of his best strength, to his country. His dream of a future free from care, and of an appointment, after another three years of service, to a municipal office of an humble kind in his native town, had been shattered at one blow. What would his parents say, his sisters and brothers, and what would become of the girl to whom he had been engaged for several years past?

A fierce rage seized him, and he could have throttled on the spot the man who by perjury, out of vindictiveness and for selfish reasons, had marred his existence forever. The blood rushed to his head as he saw this same man striding past him now, a sneer on his lips, in haughty indifference. Nay, worse, he heard the commander of the regiment say to this dishonorable scoundrel:

"That is right, Roth. Unpitying in the service is what I want my non-commissioned officers to be."

Schmitz was taken to a fortress on October 21st, where many hours of mental torture and many days of hard, grinding labor of the lowest kind awaited him.

Thus gradually approached Christmas time. The wide yard of the barracks was covered with snow. All lay desolate, lifeless, and grim in the severe cold which had supervened during the last days.

A large part of the regiment had been granted holiday leave, and every one of the men did his utmost while on duty, in order not to forfeit at the last moment the joys of home and friendship which awaited him.

Almost every evening the members of the corps of officers rode to the neighboring city, there to make Christmas purchases; for only one of them intended to go home for the holidays, and the others were preparing a little celebration at the Casino for which mutual gifts were being chosen.

Borgert and Leimann both returned from their divers trips, heavily laden with packages. They bought everything that pleased them. It might be that at some future time they would somehow have the money to pay for it all. Meanwhile every tradesman continued to give them unlimited credit.

After making their purchases, the officers usually met in a certain restaurant, where they broke the necks of a few bottles of good wine. And often it would happen that they boarded the midnight train, being in a decidedly animated mood, returning to their garrison.

One night Lieutenant Mueller, the regimental adjutant, found an official telegram on his reaching home, and was obliged, despite the late hour, to go to the chief clerk of the regiment, in order to talk over its contents.

There had been a heavy fall of snow, and the keen east wind drove the snowflakes in a wild dance through the cold air. It was all one could do to recognize the path.

Mueller, who did not like being disturbed at such a late hour, continued grumbling to himself all the way to the barracks. Whenever he had taken more than was good for him he was in a quarrelsome mood, and in such a case he usually made trouble. His comrades claimed that he was suffering from megalomania.

Through the thick snow Mueller saw the illuminated windows of the guard house, and inside the small detachment of men were peacefully slumbering.

The officer du jour had already visited them, and the men had now made themselves comfortable, discarding their sabres and helmets, contrary to the regulations, and, dozing in their chairs, had covered themselves with warm blankets.

Private Roese had mounted guard outside. He stood, shivering in the cold air, holding his sabre in his fist, barely able to maintain his martial attitude without freezing on the spot.

His thoughts dwelt in his far-away home, with his parents and brothers, whom he expected to meet again at Christmas, after a long term of separation. His people were well-to-do farmers, and his affection for the horses, cows, and plump pigs under his father's roof was as sincere as that for the bipeds. He pictured to himself all these pets, and was speculating as to what he was to do in the shape of amusement during the holidays, when he was suddenly scared by the shout:

"Guard!"

Roese pulled himself together and quickly glanced all around him in the gloom; but he was unable to discover the owner of the voice. Another similar shout reached him, and then at last he saw dimly in the driving snowflakes a figure approaching him.

"Why don't you present arms, you swine?" bawled the regimental adjutant.

"I humbly beg the Herr Lieutenant's pardon; but I did not see him coming in the snowstorm."

"Shut your mouth, you lying beast; you've been sleeping. I have been waiting an eternity for your salute; but I will show you, you hog, what punishment awaits a fellow of your stripe!"

With that he passed the sentinel, and the latter was almost paralyzed with fear. Arrived at the regimental headquarters, Mueller made the following report:

"The sentinel keeping guard between twelve and two o'clock this night I found asleep during an inspection which I made. He answered my call only after a considerable time. I must declare in advance that the man, in case he should urge his inability to recognize me in the dark, is stating what is not true, since I noticed particularly that he was asleep."

This report he placed on the desk of the commander of the regiment. Then he aroused the regimental chief clerk from a sound sleep in the adjoining room, kept that poor fellow shivering in his night garments in the corridor for about ten minutes, and then went home. Having discharged what he considered a grave duty, he was able to sleep the sleep of the just.

* * * * *

On the afternoon of December 22d, Sergeant Schmitz returned from jail.

The poor fellow had greatly changed. The black moustache, formerly twisted and waxed so as to describe an angle in exact imitation of the Kaiser's, was drooping, and his face was pale and worn. He looked shyly at all the privates whom he met in the streets, and when one of them saluted him, he deemed it a special act of courtesy. He thought he read in everybody's eyes:

"This man is a criminal,—a man punished for grave insubordination!"

When he reported himself to the chief of the squadron, the latter said, with some show of feeling:

"Sorry, my dear Schmitz, that I have to lose you. You were always a man of whom I felt proud, and who did his duty as few others did. But the colonel has commanded me to cancel the capitulation agreement[14] and to dismiss you forthwith. Console yourself with the thought that you have become the victim of a dirty intrigue. I wish you well, and if I can be of any service to you, you know where to find me. And so, farewell!"

[14] "Capitulation" means an arrangement by which a non-commissioned officer agrees to serve the government for a certain term of years.—TR.

Schmitz felt the tears spurting from his eyes, as his chief went towards the stable. His captain was really sorry to lose him. Schmitz had always been one of the pillars of discipline in the squadron, and now this train of misfortune had removed him and plunged him into misery. It was a most unfortunate thing.

Schmitz went to the sergeant-major, who gave him his papers and the fifty marks due him. The sergeant-major, too, felt sorry for him. He gave him a fervent shake of the hand.

"Have you any further claims on the regiment, Schmitz?" he asked.

"Since the manoeuvres last year I've been suffering with rheumatism."

"But you didn't tell me about that, Schmitz, at the time, and considerably over a year has elapsed since then."

"Well, I didn't report it then because I did not want to disturb the run of things by my absence. I knew the captain was bothered a good deal at the time."

"Yes, yes, that is all very well. I will report your statement at once to the regiment, but I'm afraid it will be too late. Meanwhile you had better deliver up all the regimental property."

So then Schmitz went up to his room, packed all his things, and put his private belongings in a small trunk. But before doffing his uniform he went to the neighboring city and purchased for himself a civilian's suit, a collar, and a hat. These took about all the money which had been paid him.

Then he carried everything of the government's outfit to the quartermaster, to whom he likewise sold some of the private regimentals he had bought with his own money. The sabre he kept as a memento.

And then came the hardest of all,—the farewell from his comrades and his horses. Every one had a friendly word for him, for he had been a good comrade and had never been puffed up with his own importance. Many a mute pressure of the hand told him that they all felt sorry for him, and that they, as much as he himself, thought the treatment to which he had been subjected an act of injustice. The privates, too, pressed up to him to say a word of good-bye. Often he had berated them soundly, but they all knew him as a decent fellow, and as one who had never badgered them unnecessarily.

As the noon service drew towards its close, Schmitz went into the stable. What a pang for him! Never in his life had a thing seemed so hard to him. All the beasts he loved so well turned and craned their necks towards him, leaving the savory hay and their oats for a moment as soon as they heard his voice, and gazing at him with such intelligence as if they appreciated his woe to the full. The sense of desolation almost overpowered him.

He had filled his pockets with sugar, and he began with "Clairette," feeding the sweet morsels to all his quadruped friends. "Clairette" lifted her forefoot, begging for one more piece. He laid his head against the velvety neck of the animal, stroking caressingly the silky nostrils and around the fine eyes, then kissing her on the white spot just below. The mare seemed to understand him. She whinnied softly, and gave him a sad glance of parting. Next came old "Marie." How much longer would she be able to stand the service? And thus he visited them, one by one, in token of farewell. The last one was "Napoleon"; but even he showed to-day no trace of his accustomed ill temper. He gave the strange man in civilian clothes a long look of doubt and forbearance.

A last, lingering glance to his hundred darlings, and then he painfully suppressed a tearful sob, and climbed up to his late quarters to get his trunk.

There he met the sergeant-major of his squadron.

"Your invalid claims, Schmitz, have been disallowed. The colonel says you would have had to make a report at the time. Now it is too late. Just as I thought. Here is something for you,—the bill of your attorney, who has asked the regiment to collect the amount due him. It's a matter of sixty marks; and if you are unable to pay it he threatens to seize your property."

Schmitz had almost forgotten about that.

"Within an hour I shall have the money," said he, after reflecting a moment.

Then he went down to the city and entered the store of a watchmaker. He laid on the counter his watch and chain and asked in a firm voice:

"What will you give me on this? I need money!"

The watchmaker examined both, and then said, with something of a sneer:

"Twenty marks. That is all I can give you."

Schmitz calculated silently. He still had thirty-five, and twenty more made fifty-five. So he needed another five marks. He removed a ring from his finger, a little gift from his mother.

"What is this worth to you?"

"Ten marks!"

"Good, give it to me!"

Schmitz pocketed silently the two gold pieces, then went to the barracks, paid the sergeant-major the sixty marks, and took his trunk away. He was just in time to catch the evening train.

Those who saw this pale, downcast man, with his small trunk, seated in the car, scarcely supposed that he was until recently a royal Prussian sergeant, dismissed in disgrace from long service because of a small offence, without a penny, but with rheumatism in all his bones, and with his patriotism destroyed, thrust into the street to seek a new and precarious means of living, after spending his best strength, his health, and his youth in the service of his country.

On the summit of the hill, whence he could discern the barracks, the snow glistening on its roof, he cast a last look at the spot where he had spent so many years. He raised his arms with a threatening gesture, and a curse escaped his lips.

In the train which carried him off there were numerous soldiers of his regiment, singing and joking, on their way home for the holidays.

Christmas Eve had come. All the world—thousands, millions—were happy. They felt the charm of this most beautiful Christian festival,—a day which moves to softness the hardest hearts. But Schmitz, an outcast, felt nothing but bitterness and shame. His glance dwelt on the lighted windows where all these happy people were celebrating, and he vowed vengeance.

* * * * *

Friedrich Roese meanwhile occupied a badly warmed cell, undergoing a fortnight's confinement because of his alleged inattention while on duty as sentinel.

Through the narrow window of his cell he could espy the quarters occupied by the third squadron, a couple of stories higher, in the same building; the row of windows was shining with the brilliant lights of a gigantic Christmas tree, standing in the centre of the large hall. The sounds of a pathetic Christmas hymn were floating down to him, as it was intoned by the throats of the men. Shivering with cold, he sat on the edge of his hard pallet, and a tear rolled down his cheek. Again his thoughts dwelt with his friends at home, far away, and wrath filled his soul.

What disillusionment the year had brought him since he had begun his term as volunteer! His father, once sergeant-major in a regiment of Guard Cuirassiers, had often described to him a soldier's life in vivid colors, and had expressed his hope to see, some day, his boy himself advanced to the grade of sergeant.

But that prospect was now gone. His punishment brought with it as a consequence the impossibility of ever rising from the ranks.

His one-time zeal for his calling had changed suddenly to a violent distaste for everything connected with the service. At one blow the enthusiastic, ambitious recruit had turned into one of the many soldiers who serve in the army simply because they are compelled to do so, and who are longing for the day when they will be able to doff the uniform forever.

And why all this?

Not because he had knowingly neglected his duty, but because one of the officers, one of the men whom he had until recently looked up to as demigods, had in his drunken spleen selected him for a victim. And that which this officer had maintained in his report had to stand as an absolute fact, no matter how untrue; and if he or anybody else should express doubts of its accuracy it would mean a new and punishable offence.

In answer to the questions asked by the chief of his squadron, Roese had stated the occurrence quite truthfully, and had assured him solemnly of his innocence. But the adjutant had replied to this that the man wanted to exculpate himself by untrue statements. The report was, therefore, accepted as it read.

Was it to be expected that Mueller would admit his own wrong, admit that he had in his semi-drunkenness misinterpreted the facts, and that he had been in an unpleasant frame of mind at the time? Of course not. That would have meant charging himself with an offence. How could he, the infallible regimental adjutant, own up to an error? No, he was never mistaken; and what difference did it make, anyway, if this raw recruit did get a fortnight's term in the "cooler"?

What difference?

This difference,—that there was now one more of those who proclaim that the private soldier in the German army is a man forced into a yoke, the prey of every whim of his superiors, a man exposed to the bad humor of those above him, one who has to suffer, without a sign of resistance, undeserved harshness and injustice. Such a man was now this young recruit.

And what further harm was there in it?

This,—that everybody in the future, when Roese should be asked for his testimonials, would shrug his shoulders, thinking: "This man cannot be trustworthy, for he has undergone severe punishment for neglect of duty as a sentinel, and that is a bad sign!"

Towards nine o'clock in the evening Roese was aroused from his sombre reflections by a rattling of keys at his door. The key turned in the lock, and in stepped the officer on duty, making his round, behind him the guard.

Roese jumped up, assumed a rigid military posture, and reported himself.

"Private Roese, sentenced to a fortnight's confinement for neglect of duty while on guard!"

The officer cast a searching glance into the dark cell, trying to make out whether he could discover a forbidden object in it beside the blanket and the water-pitcher, and then he turned to go. But Roese hesitatingly and in humble tones said:

"Will the Herr Lieutenant permit me to make a respectful request?"

"Ask the guard if you want anything," answered the officer shortly, and then descended the stone steps, his sword clanking.

The corporal on guard then turned and went back to Roese's cell.

"What is it you want?" he asked, with a show of good-nature.

"I should like to know, Herr Corporal, whether a letter from home has arrived for me, and whether I could not have it!" answered Roese, shyly.

"Well, my boy," laughed the corporal, "strictly speaking, that is something not permitted—first serve your sentence, then you can find out."

But as he scanned closely the features of Roese, who was of his own squadron, and whom he rather liked,—noticing the melancholy face,—he felt pity for the poor fellow. It was really a hard thing to spend Christmas in jail for what probably was a mere oversight, or for what, according to Roese himself, he had not even committed. Therefore he said pleasantly:

"Well, I will inquire."

He locked the door, and sent a man to Roese's quarters with a request to the corporal there to call on him. When the man came over he asked him:

"Is there a letter for Roese?"

"A letter? No, but a package has come for him."

"Let me tell you!" whispered the corporal. "Open the box and bring something of the contents over here. I feel sorry for the poor devil."

The other nodded and disappeared, soon to return with a letter that he had found inside the package together with some dainty eatables. The corporal took it all and brought it up to Roese, and then he told a man to carry up a pail of coal to the cell.

In a few minutes the sheet-iron stove was aglow, and sent waves of warmth into the cold cell. Roese stood in front of it, and by the flickering light of the flames he slowly perused the letter of his parents. While he read tears were streaming down his face. Then he hid away under his pillow the other treasures,—a sausage and a cake,—wrapped himself into his blanket and lay down to sleep. In his dreams Roese was standing beneath the Christmas tree, and around him were his dear ones at home.

The twenty-eighth of December was a day of mourning for the fourth squadron.

All the men, including those who had just returned from leave, gave the last escort to a dead comrade. It was Dietrich, the good-service man, who was carried out to the cemetery.

He had always been of a weakly constitution; but he had been seized by a violent fever the day when he had returned, overheated, and wet to the bones from rain, after hard drill on the parade ground, and had had to spend the evening and the night in a cold room, because Roth had refused to furnish coal. Two days later the surgeon of the regiment established the fact that inflammatory rheumatism had supervened, and this had taken so bad a turn within a short time that the heart had become affected. On Christmas Day the poor fellow had died.

His parents had been summoned by telegraph to attend the funeral of their only son; but sickness in the family and other circumstances had prevented their coming, and thus the funeral took place without a single friend or relative being present.

The day afterward the fat reserve man, the one who had been injured by "Napoleon," left the hospital. His injuries seemed healed; but the whole face was horribly disfigured by livid marks left from the sutures of the surgeon's needle, and the left eye had been removed by an operation, since it had been feared that the other eye might also be lost unless prompt and radical measures were taken.

Maimed and crippled for life, the man returned to his home, discharged from the army for physical inability. A monthly pension of nine marks had been "generously" allowed him by the government.

* * * * *

Schmitz, the ex-sergeant, on New Year's Eve sat in a scantily furnished room.

To earn a living, even if but a very poor one, he had been forced to take work as a common laborer in a large factory of the neighboring city. He had engaged board in a tenement house, with the family of a fellow-workman.

There he sat now, his head buried in his hands. On a plate before him were the remnants of a frugal supper, and a small lamp with broken chimney threw a reddish sheen on his immobile figure. Against the wall, above his bed, were hung his sabre and its scabbard, crosswise. On a small wooden stool stood a bowl, in which he had performed his ablutions, and a soiled towel hung from it. The fire in the small stove had long ago died down, and but a few coals were still glimmering feebly.

To see the man one would have imagined him asleep; but Schmitz was very much awake, and in his head wild thoughts were whirling. He was thinking of times past and gone; and the more his present circumstances contrasted with former ones, the more grimly rose his hatred against the man who had brought him to his present plight. He was planning his revenge, ruminating deeply how best he should punish the rascal, and how to brand him with a life-long reminder of his infamous deed.

A while longer he thus sat, brooding darkly; then he rose with clouded face and stepped to the window. He breathed against the pane covered with rime, until a small space had been formed through which he could peer out into the open. He saw the dial opposite on the church steeple, from which the bells melodiously rang out in full-toned peals the closing moments of the old year, and proclaiming the advent of a new one.

Midnight. Schmitz seized his hat, clapped it on, took his heavy cane into the right hand, blew out the lamp, and cautiously descended the dark staircase. On the ice-crusted step in front of the housedoor he lingered a moment, listening to the vibrations of the solemn bells. No other sound was audible; no human step could be heard—only the distant rush of air which, like the breath of a gigantic being, told of the thronged streets of a busy city.

Schmitz shiveringly turned up his coat collar, sank both his hands into his pockets, and went briskly, the cane under his arm, to the railway station. There he bought a ticket for his former garrison, but a few minutes away by rail, and stepped on board the train which had just rolled in.

Arrived there, he found the small town buried under a thick blanket of snow. From the barracks row upon row of lighted windows glimmered like stars from the distance. Every little while snatches of song or single chords, wafted towards him by the wind, gave sound in the night. Far away the ringing of church bells could be heard, coming not only from the steeples of the town itself, but from the villages and hamlets surrounding it,—a joyful greeting to the new year. From out of the dramshops and restaurants floated the sounds of loud talking, laughter, and singing of merry people, celebrating in hot punch the gladsome hour.

Schmitz went fleet-footed towards the end of the town where the barracks were situated. But when he came to a restaurant in the vicinity of the spacious building he made a halt. Cautiously he peered into the gloom around him, to make sure that nobody was near, and then he climbed to the top of a wall and looked intently into the lighted window below.

Sure enough, there sat Roth, a conspicuous figure in a company of fellow-drinkers; for in this place he habitually spent his evening hours, frequently far into the night, drinking and playing at cards.

Then carefully and noiselessly he climbed down and strolled on in the direction of the barracks. He turned into a rural pathway, lined on both sides by snow-capped hedges, and then stopped at a certain spot. He knew that Roth would pass him on his way home.

Schmitz had to wait a long while in the nipping air, but his blood bounded tumultuously through his veins; for his revenge, longed for with all his heart, was close at hand.

The keen-edged wind drove particles of snow before it and pricked his heated face like needle-points. The dead leaves of a tall beech-tree rustled over him, and he felt like a victor. Patiently, triumphantly, he waited.

Down below, where the pathway opened into the street, he now and then saw a dark shape reel past and disappear in the night like a shadow, the soft snow deadening the footfall. These were jolly roysterers, returning from their carousal.

From the steeple, some distance away, came the metallic voice of a bell striking the first hour of the new year, and Schmitz reckoned on the probability that his foe would soon wend his way homeward.

But in this he deceived himself, for it was close unto two o'clock when the "Vice" at last turned into the lane. Schmitz could not be mistaken. His sharp eyes, by this time habituated to the dark, clearly made out the burly figure. He grasped his cane firmly in his hand, and his heart hammered in his bosom. Nearer and nearer Roth approached, now but a few steps away, his face almost completely hidden in the upturned collar of his cloak; but Schmitz saw the cruel, hard eyes, now dull and fishy from excessive indulgence in New Year's punch. Roth was in a good humor, however, whistling to himself and dragging his sabre at his feet, walking with unsteady gait.

At this moment Schmitz stepped out from beside the hedge, and, his cane on his shoulder, he planted himself before the other.

Roth was startled, and looked keenly at the man who stopped his progress. He did not recognize him.

"What is it you want?" He mumbled thickly.

"To settle accounts with you," was the brief answer. At the sound of the voice Roth visibly paled. For a moment the two stared at each other.

"Oh, I see, it is you, old fellow. And what do you want of me?"

"This is what I want!" shouted Schmitz, and with terrific force his cane came down on Roth's head. A second blow followed, almost as hard, which hit him on the cheek, so that the blood rushed out of the wound. The "Vice," taken unawares, made no motion to defend himself while Schmitz rained a shower of strokes on his body. Then at last Roth, wide awake now, felt for his sabre, partly drawing it from its scabbard; but Schmitz gave him no chance to use it. Like a famished wolf he seized his enemy by the throat, throttling him, and, dropping his cane, with his clenched fist he dealt him several fearful blows on forehead and mouth, winding up with a tattoo that sounded like the beating of a drum on the man's skull. A violent push made Roth stumble and fall to his knees.

"So, now, you miserable cur, I have paid my debt to you!" and saying which, he kicked his fallen foe. Then he turned on his heels and said, as a parting shot:

"Now go and report me again, you swine; but if you do I shall have another reckoning with you, and tell about some of your thieving!"

The former "foddermaster" felt that he had meted out justice, and he was fully prepared to take the consequences, no matter what they might be. Revenge is a sweet morsel.

Roth had to spend several weeks in the hospital, until he had recovered from his injuries. It was the hardest drubbing he had ever received in his life. Vanity forbade him to give a true version of the assault. He reported that he had been attacked by several drunken laborers, and claimed to have used his sabre with effect on one of them; but nobody believed his tale, for no wounded laborer was heard of in the little town, and physicians there and in the vicinity were equally ignorant of such a case. It was, therefore, generally assumed that Roth had met with his deserts at the hands of the ex-sergeant, and nobody pitied him.



CHAPTER V

OFFICERS AT A MASQUERADE

During the last days of January the Casino was in an uproar. A number of mechanics, painters, and florists were busy transforming the rooms and corridors, even the veranda, with its adjoining conservatory, into a suite of daintily decorated festal halls. Numerous booths and tents were being erected, and all other preparations were made worthily to receive Prince Carnival, whose coming was timed for the first week in February.

Hundreds of potted plants and orange and laurel trees from the conservatory gave a gay and summer-like appearance to the ballroom. Placards painted and inscribed in suitable manner hung from the walls. In the booths and tents the usual array of eatables and "wet goods" of every description could be seen, to be sold by pretty womenfolk. One stage had been fitted up for variety performances, while on another a circus was to be seen, in which a number of private soldiers, disguised as wild beasts, were to play leading parts under the eyes and whip of the trainer—none other than Captain Kahle. These men had been drilled for the purpose throughout the whole month.

There was also a stretch of natural greensward, laid down by the Casino gardener. This was to produce the illusion of a small park. Benches placed on it invited the guests to rest and to enjoy the music of a band upon a suitable stand, while Pilsen beer was to be handed to the audience by waiters. In an adjoining room mock marriages were to be performed, the fee to the officiating justice of the peace to consist in the purchase of a bottle of champagne. And, to complete the scene, arrangements had also been made to obtain a quick decree of divorce (by the same official) for all those couples who deemed themselves mismated after a short experience of an hour or so.

The large dining-room represented picnic grounds. On a platform wreathed in green there was room for an orchestra, and the trumpeters of the regiment had been ransacking the whole town for weeks in order to find ragged costumes and discarded garments of every kind, clad in which they were to represent village musicians.

Even photographers were there, to ply their trade in several tents, the outside of which showed a collection of ludicrous portraits and prints of various kinds. The purpose of this stratagem was, of course, to attract customers.

Naturally all these festivities, planned for weeks, formed the main topic of conversation with the members of the club, and the whole garrison was for the time being turned topsy-turvy. Every one intended to appear in as original and amusing a guise as possible, and there was much mutual consulting and guessing as to which particular role was to be assumed by each person.

Thus the opening night of the fete drew near. During the afternoon a crowd of hairdressers moved into the Casino, to assist members of the club in getting themselves up properly. The regimental tailor, with his aides, went from one officer's house to another, making alterations or needed repairs on the uniforms and costumes to be donned.

At seven in the evening the orderlies, in the black garments of waiters, were expecting the guests and members, and half an hour later these began to arrive in crowds.

It was a multi-colored, vivid picture, as all these persons, many of them good-looking and picturesquely attired, in all sorts of disguises, began to move in the brilliantly lighted halls, while the several bands, placed at coigns of vantage, struck up lively and inspiring airs. Dancing began at once, and champagne flowed in streams. At a garden table under an orange tree one could see a powerfully limbed peasant, his hawthorn stick between his knees, devouring a plateful of caviare, while his neighbor, a circus clown, was dissecting a lobster.

The most ludicrous figure, however, was Colonel von Kronau in his Polish farmer's costume, wearing a fur cap on his head, and a tippet around his neck. If he had appeared in this disguise at the hog market in a Pomeranian town, every purchaser would have supposed him to be the "genuine article," namely, a breeder of porkers. And it was quite evident that he did not have to take much pains correctly to imitate the manners and gestures of the person he represented.

The champagne was paid for out of a common fund specially raised by all the members of the Casino. It was, therefore, not astonishing that the Herr Colonel was, after the lapse of one brief hour, deep in his cups.

His adjutant had not done well to disguise himself as a Polish Jew, for in that way he looked indeed too much his part.

Frau Koenig was charming as a chambermaid, and her blue eyes radiated the pleasure she felt. As a young gamekeeper, Lieutenant Bleibtreu paid assiduous court to the aforementioned chambermaid. He had already proposed to her to visit the "marriage booth" in the adjoining room, and the justice of the peace was getting ready his paraphernalia. Only late at night, when the captain, her every-day husband, carried her home, did the pretty maid relinquish her newer claims upon the gamekeeper.

Frau Leimann presented herself as a peasant girl from the "Vierlande,"—a district near Hamburg,—and her costume looked indeed very picturesque, and became her well. Borgert noticed this fact with great pleasure, and the dainty figure and small nimble feet made a strong impression on his susceptible heart.

Frau Kahle, as a flower girl, was flirting desperately with the younger men. She also played her part very well, for the champagne in which she had liberally indulged began to exert its effects. Lieutenant Kolberg, as a modish dandy, had already purchased nearly her entire supply of flowers, and when, soon after, the remnant had gone, he claimed and obtained her as his partner for the dance.

Frau Captain Stark alone did not seem to belong in this milieu. The choice of a costume, to begin with, had occasioned her deep and anxious thought. She felt that to follow her inclinations and appear at the masquerade in either the guise of a ballet dancer or of a flower girl would too markedly invite criticism. Her fifty years and her towering shape would really have made her too conspicuous in such parts. On the other hand, to show herself as a peddler woman or fishwife would have, so she feared, made her look "too natural." Having, therefore, discarded these notions, her fancy roved in the realms of the beautiful and fantastic, until it settled down upon a costume which, bespangled and with its garland of rushes, she declared to be that of a "mermaid of middle age." Nobody was in a condition to contradict her, inasmuch as nobody recollected ever having seen a "middle-aged" mermaid before. She floated, as a matter of fact, in a cloud of pink and sea-green laces. The capacious bosom this cloud concealed from view rolled and heaved quite realistically, thus producing the effect of ocean waves, and her enormous arms were awe-inspiring enough to keep away all evening those in the crowd who had not got their sea-legs,—and that meant practically all the younger officers. At all other times her most dutiful slaves, these young men seemed to have conspired to leave the dreaded chief of the regiment's nominal chief severely alone. Of course she felt this as an unpardonable offence, and this all the more as the colonel at an early hour was in an irresponsible condition, and hence listened to her violent plaint with stolid equanimity.

There was a male trio, too, that claimed some attention. They represented to the life merry, devil-may-care vagabonds, and so well did they act their parts that one would have supposed they had just been picked up on the miry highway outside. They deemed it, of course, strictly within their privileges to get drunk with all due speed,—an endeavor in which they admirably succeeded. From that hour on they became an unmitigated nuisance, not even atoned for by some humor or merry pranks. After midnight they were always seen in a bunch, steadying each other as they lurched along.

Lieutenant von Meckelburg, during the earlier part of the evening, stuck resolutely and almost silently to his assigned duty, it being that of an organ-grinder. He had picked up somewhere a villainous specimen of this instrument of torture, and with it had retired into a corner, wearing the ragged and faded clothes of an impecunious veteran of the wars, with his visorless, crumpled cap pulled over his eyes, and with a face which for unadulterated melancholy could not be duplicated. Hardly any one took notice of him, and his physiognomy grew sadder and sadder. At last, however, he left his organ in its corner, and visited the various bars where champagne could be had. With each generous libation his features cleared, and finally he got himself into a decidedly hilarious condition, and not only moved with his organ into the centre of the greensward, where he placed it on one of the benches, but accompanied its shrill and squeaking notes with a mellow basso of his own.

The bands meanwhile played their best and merriest, and as several casks of beer and some dozen bottles of cheap spirits had been provided for them, the members, both trumpeters of the regiment and civilian musicians hired for the night, devoted no inconsiderable portion of the intervals between their playing to frequent and prolonged visits to that small side-room where these drinkables had been placed ready for use. After a while they dispensed even with such formalities. They rolled the remaining casks up the steps of their podium, and shortly the faucet could be espied from among the greenery, and the musicians hovering about it. As a matter of course, their playing soon showed the effects of all this tippling. One man particularly, one of the flageolets, became quite unmanageable,—or rather the instrument on which he was performing,—so that it usually was the space of a second or two ahead of the others. This weird music only ended with the removal of flageolet and man from the scene.

At eleven began the festal performance on the small stage constructed for the purpose.

One of the lieutenants led off with two topical songs rather too outspoken in the lessons they tried to convey. He was disguised as a prima ballerina for the purpose, and as a windup he danced, with great skill and abandon, a can-can. The ladies tittered and the men guffawed. After more of the same kind there was enacted a parody on Shakespeare's "Hamlet." The gentleman responsible for this version had employed radical means to clear the stage of all the dramatis personae, at the end. Murder, suicide, poison, dagger, lightning even decimated their ranks, and when the curtain dropped there was not a soul of them left alive. The crowning effect of this parody was the appearance of the prompter himself before the footlights. In a few tear-choked words he informed the audience that after seeing the actors all die, and nothing but corpses around him, he could and would not survive, and so he made an end of himself, too, using a rope for the purpose.

The humor of the whole audience after that grew rapidly boisterous, and by midnight the tone of this carnival fete given by officers and their ladies could scarcely be distinguished from that rampant at a village kermess. If anything, it was a trifle more unconventional.

Lieutenant Kolberg had in the meantime found a cosy arbor into which to retire with Frau Captain Kahle, and more effectually to exclude intruders had placed a tall screen before the entrance.

A little "flirtation," more or less serious, was something he could not do without, and since the garrison with its staid citizens and their staider wives and daughters did not furnish the material required for him, he had made up his mind to lay violent siege to the heart of the lady. He knew that it was a susceptible one, and from Pommer he had heard, in hours of bibulous intercourse, that siege in her case meant speedy surrender. He had already progressed with her beyond mere preliminary skirmishes, and in their conversations with nobody near they had begun to use the intimate "thou," and to call each other by their given names.

For his purpose, then, no better time could have been found than this very festivity, with all the allurements which champagne, music, the dance, and the hurly-burly of a huge crowd afforded. Shielded against indiscreet spies by the interlacing vines creeping all over this arbor, his love-making had proceeded at such a rapid pace that within an hour the little woman did not thrust her gallant wooer aside when he dared imprint a kiss on her swelling lips.

In another arbor, more in proximity to the champagne bar, First Lieutenant Leimann sat in lonely misery and shed rivulets of tears. His intoxication, in its more advanced stage, always took that form known technically as "howling desolation." On this occasion it had seized him promptly after the ninth glassful.

His condition was in ludicrous contrast with the magnificence and dash of his attire, for he was dressed, regardless of expense, as a Hungarian magnate of the first water, and he rejected with sombre scorn all attempts made by friends to commiserate him. His nearer acquaintances knew for a certainty that he would thus remain seated on top of an empty wine cask until the very close of the ball. For whenever the black devils of drink cast their spell over him in this fashion it required from four to six hours to emerge into a saner and somewhat soberer frame of mind. Just now his sobs shook his whole bony body. The divers orderlies who passed him held their sides with laughter, but he heeded them not.