ually accomplishing her disguise.
Such was the position of the chief actors in this truly distressing
drama, at the moment when Colonel de Haldimar came up with his new
prisoner, to mark what effect would be produced on Halloway by his
unexpected appearance. His own surprise and disappointment may be
easily conceived, when, in the form of the recumbent being who seemed
to engross universal attention, he recognised, by the fair and
streaming hair, and half exposed bosom, the unfortunate being whom,
only two hours previously, he had spurned from his feet in the costume
of her own sex, and reduced, by the violence of her grief, to almost
infantine debility. Question succeeded question to those around, but
without eliciting any clue to the means by which this mysterious
disguise had been effected. No one had been aware, until the truth was
so singularly and suddenly revealed, the supposed drummer was any other
than one of the lads attached to the grenadiers; and as for the other
facts, they spoke too plainly to the comprehension of the governor to
need explanation. Once more, however, the detachment was called to
order. Halloway struck his hand violently upon his brow, kissed the wan
lips of his still unconscious wife, breathing, as he did so, a half
murmured hope she might indeed be the corpse she appeared. He then
raised himself from the earth with a light and elastic vet firm
movement, and resumed the place he had previously occupied, where, to
his surprise, he beheld a second victim bound, and, apparently, devoted
to the same death. When the eyes of the two unhappy men met, the
governor closely watched the expression of the countenance of each; but
although the Canadian started on beholding the soldier, it might be
merely because he saw the latter arrayed in the garb of death, and
followed by the most unequivocal demonstrations of a doom to which he
himself was, in all probability, devoted. As for Halloway, his look
betrayed neither consciousness nor recognition; and though too proud to
express complaint or to give vent to the feelings of his heart, his
whole soul appeared to be absorbed in the unhappy partner of his
luckless destiny. Presently he saw her borne, and in the same state of
insensibility, in the arms of Captain Erskine and Lieutenant Leslie,
towards the hut of his fellow prisoner, and he heard the former officer
enjoin the weeping girl, Babette, to whose charge they delivered her
over, to pay every attenti
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