lotted blood, which had streamed forth
from the scalped brain during the night.

"It's the divil himself," said Phil Shehan, making the sign of the
cross, half in jest, half in earnest: "for it isn't the captin at all,
and who but the divil could have managed to clap on his rigimintals?"

"No, it's an Ingian," remarked Dick Burford, sagaciously; "it's an
Ingian that has killed the captain, and dressed himself in his clothes.
I thought he smelt strong, when I helped to pick him up."

"And that's the reason why the bloody heathens wouldn't let us carry
him off," said another of the litter men. "I thought they wouldn't ha'
made such a rout about the officer, when they had his scalp already in
their pouch-belts."

"What a set of prating fools ye are," interrupted the leading sergeant;
"who ever saw an Ingian with light hair? and sure this hair in the neck
is that of a Christian."

At that moment Captain Erskine, attracted by the sudden halt produced
by the falling of the body, came quickly up to the front.

"What is the meaning of all this, Cassidy?" he sternly demanded of the
sergeant; "why is this halt without my orders, and how comes the body
here?"

"Carter stumbled against a root, sir, and the body rolled over upon the
ground."

"And was the body to roll back again?" angrily rejoined his
captain.--"What mean ye, fellows, by standing there; quick, replace it
upon the litter, and mind this does not occur again."

"They say, sir," said the sergeant, respectfully, as the men proceeded
to their duty, "that it is not Captain de Haldimar after all, but an
Ingian."

"Not Captain de Haldimar! are ye all mad? and have the Indians, in
reality, turned your brains with fear?"

What, however, was his own surprise, and that of Lieutenant Johnstone,
when, on a closer examination of the corpse, which the men had now
placed with its face uppermost, they discovered the bewildering fact
that it was not, indeed, Captain de Haldimar who lay before them, but a
stranger, dressed in the uniform of that officer.

There was no time to solve, or even to dwell on the singular mystery;
for the Indians, though now retired, might be expected to rally and
renew the attack. Once more, therefore, the detachment moved forward;
the officers dropping as before to the rear, to watch any movements of
the enemy should he re-appear. Nothing, however, occurred to interrupt
their march; and in a few minutes the heavy clanking sound of the
chains