how
skillful and valiant they might be, could avail nothing, and, after
Ticonderoga, it would be a mere question of time until Crown Point
fell too. And after that would come Quebec and the conquest of Canada.

Now, when his spirits had soared so high, the fall was correspondingly
low. His sensitive mind, upon which events always painted themselves
with such vividness, reflected only the darkest pictures. He saw the
triumphant advance of the French, the Indians laying waste the whole
of New York Province, and the enemy at the gates of New York itself.

The night itself was a perfect reproduction of his own mind. He saw
through his spirits as through a glass. The dusk was thick, heavy,
it was noisome, it had a quality that was almost ponderable, it was
unpleasant to eye and nostril, he tasted and breathed the smoke that
was shot through it, and he felt a sickening of the soul. He heard a
wind moaning through the forest, and it was to him a dirge, the lament
of those who had fallen.

He knew there had been no lack of bravery on the part of his own.
After a while he took some consolation in that fact. British and
Americans had come to the attack long after hope of success was gone.
They had not known how to win, but never had men known better how to
die. Such valor would march to triumph in the end.

He lay awake almost the whole night, and he did not expect Abercrombie
to advance again. Somehow he had the feeling that the play, so far as
this particular drama was concerned, was played out. The blow was
so heavy that he was in a dull and apathetic state from which he was
stirred only once in the evening, and that was when two Frenchmen
passed near him, escorting a prisoner of whose face he caught a
glimpse in the firelight. He started forward, exclaiming:

"Charteris!"[1]

The young man, tall, handsome and firm of feature, although a
captive, turned.

"Who called me?" he asked.

"It is I, Robert Lennox," said Robert. "I knew you in New York!"

"Aye, Mr. Lennox. I recognize you now. We meet again, after so long
a time. I could have preferred the meeting to be elsewhere and under
other circumstances, but it is something to know that you are alive."

They shook hands with great friendliness and the Frenchmen, who were
guarding Charteris, waited patiently.

"May our next meeting be under brighter omens," said Robert.

"I think it will be," said Charteris confidently.

Then he went on. It was a long time before