the inner by the quarters of
the commanding officer.

As the officers now issued from the mess-room nearly opposite to the
gate, they observed, at that part of the barracks which ran at right
angles with it, and immediately in front of the apartment of the
younger De Haldimar, whence he had apparently just issued, the
governor, struggling, though gently, to disengage himself from a
female, who, with disordered hair and dress, lay almost prostrate upon
the piazza, and clasping his booted leg with an energy evidently
borrowed from the most rooted despair. The quick eye of the haughty man
had already rested on the group of officers drawn by the scream of the
supplicant. Numbers, too, of the men, attracted by the same cause, were
collected in front of their respective block-houses, and looking from
the windows of the rooms in which they were also breakfasting,
preparatory to the expedition. Vexed and irritated beyond measure, at
being thus made a conspicuous object of observation to his inferiors,
the unbending governor made a violent and successful effort to
disengage his leg; and then, without uttering a word, or otherwise
noticing the unhappy being who lay extended at his feet, he stalked
across the parade to his apartments at the opposite angle, without
appearing to manifest the slightest consciousness of the scene that had
awakened such universal attention.

Several of the officers, among whom was Captain Blessington, now
hastened to the assistance of the female, whom all had recognised, from
the first, to be the interesting and unhappy wife of Halloway. Many of
the comrades of the latter, who had been pained and pitying spectators
of the scene, also advanced for the same purpose; but, on perceiving
their object anticipated by their superiors, they withdrew to the
blocks-houses, whence they had issued. Never was grief more forcibly
depicted, than in the whole appearance of this unfortunate woman; never
did anguish assume a character more fitted to touch the soul, or to
command respect. Her long fair hair, that had hitherto been hid under
the coarse mob-cap, usually worn by the wives of the soldiers, was now
divested of all fastening, and lay shadowing a white and polished
bosom, which, in her violent struggles to detain the governor, had
burst from its rude but modest confinement, and was now displayed in
all the dazzling delicacy of youth and sex. If the officers gazed for a
moment with excited look upon charms tha