he awkward squad, where he might best learn to discard the free
gestures of the windmills of the Continent of Europe.

"To disgrace me afore the officers," said Corporal O'Flynn, "and I
fairly responsible for ye! I larned ye all ye know--and for ye to show
the leftenant how little 'tis! Ye've got to quit that way of loading
with ca'tridge with as many motions as an old jontleman feeling for his
snuff-box! I'm fairly responsible for yez. I'm yer sponsor in this
business. I feel like yer godfathers, an' yer godmothers, an' yer maiden
aunt. I never seen a man so supple! Ye have as much use of yer hands as
if ye was a centipede!"

The matter and manner of this discourse tried the gravity of the awkward
squad, but no one dared to laugh, and Corporal O'Flynn himself was as
grave as if it were a question of the weightiest importance involved, as
he stood by and watched for a time the drill of the men.

The Indians turned their attentive eyes to Captain Stuart and Captain
Demere, who were both upon the terre-pleine at the shoulder-point of a
bastion where one of the twelve cannon, mounted _en barbette_, looked
grimly forth over the parapet. The gunners were receiving some
instructions which Stuart was giving in reference to serving the piece;
now and again it was pointed anew; he handled the heavy sponge-staff as
if in illustration; then stepped swiftly back, and lifted the match, as
if about to fire the gun. The Indians loitering in the shade watched the
martial figure, the sun striking full on the red coat and cocked hat,
and long, heavy queue of fair hair hanging on his shoulders, and as he
stood erect, with the sponge-staff held horizontally in both hands, they
turned and looked with a common impulse at one another and suddenly spat
upon the ground. The sentry in a sort of cabin above the gate--a
gate-house, so to speak--maintained a guard within as well as without,
for an outer sentinel was posted on the crest of the counterscarp beyond
the bridge; he kept his eye on the Cherokees, but he did not note their
look. He was not skilled in deciphering facial expression, nor did he
conceive himself deputed to construe the grimaces of savages. Gazing
without for a moment, he turned back and cast a glance of kindly concern
on Hamish MacLeod, who was disconsolately strolling about, not daring
to go back and encounter the reproaches of Odalie, who doubtless thought
him even now in the wilderness with a searching party, too urgent t