Immediately upon returning to the advanced line Dave was ordered back to the “Long Island” for prompt surgical treatment.  Though his wound was not dangerous, in itself, the climate of Vera Cruz is one in which there is the gravest danger of blood-poisoning setting in in any wound.

The day after that, duty on shore being lighter, and officers being needed aboard, Danny Grin was ordered back to ship duty, while Lieutenant Trent remained ashore with his detachment.

Having broken arrest, Cantor, on being returned to ship, was placed behind the steel bars of the ship’s brig.  There was no further escape for him.  But his brother officers sighed their relief when a board of surgeons declared Lieutenant Cantor to be hopelessly insane, and expressed their opinion that he had been in that unfortunate mental condition for at least some weeks.  That removed the taint of treason from the “Long Island’s” ward-room, as an insane man is never held responsible for his wrong acts.

It was gambling to excess, and the fear of being dropped from the Navy Register, that had caused the wreck of Cantor’s mind.  He is now properly confined in an asylum.

Mrs. Black had not left Vera Cruz, but still lingered on one of the refugee ships in the harbor, where the Denmans found her.  Mrs. Black was a widow who devoted her time and her wealth to missionary work in Mexico.  Dave learned to his surprise that she was the daughter of Jason Denman, and a sister of the girl whom Dave had served so signally in New York.

Mr. Denman, who was a wealthy resident of an Ohio town, had extensive mining interests in Mexico, and had gone there to look after them, leaving Miss Denman and her mother in New York.  Cantor, who had first met the Denmans in Ohio, when on recruiting duty in that state, had planned to make Miss Denman his wife for purely mercenary reasons.  He had struggled to overcome his gaming mania, and had planned that once Miss Denman became his wife her money should be used to pay his gaming debts and free him from the claims of the vice.

But Mr. Denman, with the insight of a wise man, had discouraged the suit.

In New York, before the “Long Island” had sailed, Cantor had met young Tom Denman in a gambling resort.  Plying the young man with liquor, Cantor had persuaded the young man, when unconscious of what he was doing, to forge a banker’s name to two checks, which Cantor had persuaded an acquaintance of his to cash.  Of course the checks had been refused payment at the bank, but the man who had cashed them had disappeared.

Cantor had offered to save young Tom Denman.  Without involving himself Cantor could have testified that the young man was all but unconscious, and without knowledge of his act, when he “forged” the cheeks.