of his exulting shout, felt
that justice imperatively demanded her victim, and no longer hesitated
in awarding the doom that became the supposed traitor. It was under
this impression that he sternly gave and repeated the fatal order to
fire; and by this misjudged and severe, although not absolutely cruel
act, not only destroyed one of the noblest beings that ever wore a
soldier's uniform, but entailed upon himself and family that terrific
curse of his maniac wife, which rang like a prophetic warning in the
ears of all, and was often heard in the fitful starlings of his own
ever-after troubled slumbers.

What his feelings were, when subsequently he discovered, in the
wretched fugitive, the son whom he already believed to have been
numbered with the dead, and heard from his lips a confirmation of all
that had been advanced by the unhappy Halloway, we shall leave it to
our readers to imagine. Still, even amid his first regret, the rigid
disciplinarian was strong within him; and no sooner had the detachment
regained the fort, after performing the last offices of interment over
their ill-fated comrade, than Captain de Haldimar received an
intimation, through the adjutant, to consider himself under close
arrest for disobedience of orders. Finally, however, he succeeded in
procuring an interview with his father; in the course of which,
disclosing the plot of the Indians, and the short period allotted for
its being carried into execution, he painted in the most gloomy colours
the alarming, dangers which threatened them all, and finished by
urgently imploring his father to suffer him to make the attempt to
reach their unsuspecting friends at Michilimackinac. Fully impressed
with the difficulties attendant on a scheme that offered so few
feasible chances of success, Colonel de Haldimar for a period denied
his concurrence; but when at length the excited young man dwelt on the
horrors that would inevitably await his sister and betrothed cousin,
were they to fall into the hands of the savages, these considerations
were found to be effective. An after-arrangement included Sir Everard
Valletort, who had expressed a strong desire to share his danger in the
enterprise; and the services of the Canadian, who had been brought back
a prisoner to the fort, and on whom promises and threats were bestowed
in an equally lavish manner, were rendered available. In fact, without
the assistance of Francois, there was little chance of their effectin