of the
capture of baggage or the necessity of throwing it away. Montgomery had
advanced,--that was indubitable. Nevertheless,--and perhaps it was the
lowering influence of the scanty fare on which they had so long
subsisted,--both officers dreaded the suspense less than the coming
disclosure.

Stuart felt all his nerves grow tense late one day in the red July
sunset, when there emerged from the copse of pawpaw bushes, close to the
river where Odalie had once been wont to repair to talk to
Choo-qualee-qualoo, a tall form, arrayed in a gray gown, a trifle
ill-adjusted, with a big red calash drawn forward on the head, that
walked at a somewhat slashing gait across the open space toward the
glacis. He thanked heaven that Mrs. MacLeod was ill in her bed, although
he had some twenty minutes ago been sending to her through her husband
expressions of polite and heartfelt regret and sympathy.

"Why, I hardly thought Mrs. MacLeod was well enough to take a walk," he
observed to the sentry. Daniel Eske naturally supposed that Mrs. MacLeod
had slipped out before he had gone on duty, having just been sent to the
relief of the previous sentinel. Stuart went down to the embrasure,
assisted the supposed lady to her feet as she slipped through, and
ceremoniously offered her his arm as she was about to plunge down the
steep interior slope in a very boyish fashion. They found Demere in the
great hall, and both officers read the brief official dispatch with
countenances of dismay.

"This says that you can explain the details," said Demere, with dry lips
and brightly gleaming eyes.

"Oh, yes," said Hamish. "All the time that I was at Fort Prince George
the commandant was writing letters to Governor Bull--for Lyttleton has
been appointed to Jamaica--and hustling off his expresses to South
Carolina. He sent three, and said if he heard from none by return he
would send more."

For this was the appalling fact that had fallen like a
thunderbolt,--Colonel Montgomery had with his command quitted the
country and sailed for New York. His orders were to strike a sudden blow
for the relief of Carolina and return to head-quarters at Albany at the
earliest possible moment. No word of the grievous straits of the
garrison of Fort Loudon had reached him. He had, indeed, advanced from
Fort Prince George, which he had made the base of his aggressive
operations against the Cherokees, but not for the relief of Fort Loudon,
for neither he nor the command