ad previously stripped himself of his uniform
and shoes. He then suffered himself to drop gently over the edge of the
rampart, his companions gradually lowering the rope, until a deep and
gasping aspiration, such as is usually wrung from one coming suddenly
in contact with cold water, announced he had gained the surface of the
ditch. The rope was then slackened, to give him the unrestrained
command of his limbs; and in the next instant he was seen clambering up
the opposite elevation.

Although the officers, indulging in a forced levity, in a great degree
meant to encourage their companion, had treated his enterprise with
indifference, they were far from being without serious anxiety for the
result. They had laughed at the idea, suggested by him, of being
scalped; whereas, in truth, they entertained the apprehension far more
powerfully than he did himself. The artifices resorted to by the
savages, to secure an isolated victim, were so many and so various,
that suspicion could not but attach to the mysterious occurrence they
had just witnessed. Willing even as they were to believe their present
visitor, whoever he was, came not in a spirit of enmity, they could not
altogether divest themselves of a fear that it was only a subtle
artifice to decoy one of them within the reach of their traitorous
weapons. They, therefore, watched the movements of their companion with
quickening pulses; and it was with a lively satisfaction they saw him,
at length, after a momentary search, descend once more into the ditch,
and, with a single powerful impulsion of his limbs, urge himself back
to the foot of the rampart. Neither feet nor hands were of much
service, in enabling him to scale the smooth and slanting logs that
composed the exterior surface of the works; but a slight jerk of the
well secured rope, serving as a signal to his friends, he was soon
dragged once more to the summit of the rampart, without other injury
than a couple of slight bruises.

"Well, what success?" eagerly asked Leslie and Captain Erskine in the
same breath, as the dripping Johnstone buried himself in the folds of a
capacious cloak procured during his absence.

"You shall hear," was the reply; "but first, gentlemen, allow me, if
you please, to enjoy, with yourselves, the luxury of dry clothes. I
have no particular ambition to contract an American ague fit just now;
yet, unless you take pity on me, and reserve my examination for a
future moment, there is ever