Recovered from the first and irrepressible agitation which had driven him to sound the tocsin of alarm, he felt how derogatory to his military dignity and proverbial coolness of character it might be considered, to have awakened a whole garrison from their slumbers, when a few files of the guard would have answered his purpose equally well. Besides, so much time had been suffered to elapse, that the stranger might have escaped; and if so, how many might be disposed to ridicule his alarm, and consider it as emanating from an imagination disturbed by sleep, rather than caused by the actual presence of one endowed like themselves with the faculties of speech and motion. For a moment he hesitated whether he should not countermand the summons to arms which had been so precipitately given; but when he recollected the harrowing threat that had been breathed in his ear by his midnight visiter,–when he reflected, moreover, that even now it was probable he was lurking within the precincts of the fort with a view to the destruction of all that it contained,–when, in short, he thought of the imminent danger that must attend them should he be suffered to escape,–he felt the necessity of precaution, and determined on his measures, even at the risk of manifesting a prudence which might be construed unfavourably. On re-entering his apartments, he found his orderly, who, roused by the midnight tumult, stood waiting to receive the commands of his chief.

“Desire Major Blackwater to come to me immediately.”

The mandate was quickly obeyed. In a few seconds a short, thick-set, and elderly officer made his appearance in a grey military undress frock.

“Blackwater, we have traitors within the fort. Let diligent search be made in every part of the barracks for a stranger, an enemy, who has managed to procure admittance among us: let every nook and cranny, every empty cask, be examined forthwith; and cause a number of additional sentinels to be stationed along the ramparts, in order to intercept his escape.”

“Good Heaven, is it possible?” said the Major, wiping the perspiration from his brows, though the night was un usually chilly for the season of the year:–“how could he contrive to enter a place so vigilantly guarded?”

“Ask me not how, Blackwater,” returned the Governor seriously; “let it suffice that he has been in this very room, and that ten minutes since he stood where you now stand.”

The Major looked aghast.–“God bless me, how singular! How could the savage contrive to obtain admission? or was he in reality an Indian?”

“No more questions, Major Blackwater. Hasten to distribute the men, and let diligent search be made every where; and recollect, neither officer nor man courts his pillow until dawn.”

The “Major” emphatically prefixed to his name was a sufficient hint to the stout officer that the doubts thus familiarly expressed were here to cease, and that he was now addressed in the language of authority by his superior, who expected a direct and prompt compliance with his orders. He therefore slightly touched his hat in salutation, and withdrew to make the dispositions that had been enjoined by his Colonel.

On regaining the parade, he caused the men, already forming into companies and answering to the roll-call of their respective non-commissioned officers, to be wheeled into square, and then in a low but distinct voice stated the cause of alarm; and, having communicated the orders of the Governor, finished by recommending to each the exercise of the most scrutinising vigilance; as on the discovery of the individual in question, and the means by which he had contrived to procure admission, the safety of the whole garrison, it was evident, must depend.

The soldiers now dispersed in small parties throughout the interior of the fort, while a select body were conducted to the ramparts by the officers themselves, and distributed between the sentinels already posted there, in such numbers, and at such distances, that it appeared impossible any thing wearing the human form could pass them unperceived, even in the obscurity that reigned around.

When this duty was accomplished, the officers proceeded to the posts of the several sentinels who had been planted since the last relief, to ascertain if any or either of them had observed aught to justify the belief that an enemy had succeeded in scaling the works. To all their enquiries, however, they received a negative reply, accompanied by a declaration, more or less positive with each, that such had been their vigilance during the watch, had any person come within their beat, detection must have been inevitable. The first question was put to the sentinel stationed at the gate of the fort, at which point the whole of the officers of the garrison were, with one or two exceptions, now assembled. The man at first evinced a good deal of confusion; but this might arise from the singular fact of the alarm that had been given, and the equally singular circumstance of his being thus closely interrogated by the collective body of his officers: he, however, persisted in declaring that he had been in no wise inattentive to his duty, and that no cause for alarm or suspicion had occurred near his post. The officers then, in order to save time, separated into two parties, pursuing opposite circuits, and arranging to meet at that point of the ramparts which was immediately in the rear, and overlooking the centre of the semicircular sweep of wild forest we have described as circumventing the fort.

“Well, Blessington, I know not what you think of this sort of work,” observed Sir Everard Valletort, a young lieutenant of the ____ regiment, recently arrived from England, and one of the party who now traversed the rampart to the right; “but confound me if I would not rather be a barber’s apprentice in London, upon nothing, and find myself, than continue a life of this kind much longer. It positively quite knocks me up; for what with early risings, and watchings (I had almost added prayings), I am but the shadow of my former self.”

“Hist, Valletort, hist! speak lower,” said Captain Blessington, the senior officer present, “or our search must be in vain. Poor fellow!” he pursued, laughing low and good humouredly at the picture of miseries thus solemnly enumerated by his subaltern;–“how much, in truth, are you to be pitied, who have so recently basked in all the sunshine of enjoyment at home. For our parts, we have lived so long amid these savage scenes, that we have almost forgotten what luxury, or even comfort, means. Doubt not, my friend, that in time you will, like us, be reconciled to the change.”

“Confound me for an idiot, then, if I give myself time,” replied Sir Everard affectedly. “It was only five minutes before that cursed alarm bell was sounded in my ears, that I had made up my mind fully to resign or exchange the instant I could do so with credit to myself; and, I am sure, to be called out of a warm bed at this unseasonable hour offers little inducement for me to change my opinion.”

“Resign or exchange with credit to yourself!” sullenly observed a stout tall officer of about fifty, whose spleen might well be accounted for in his rank of “Ensign” Delme. “Methinks there can be little credit in exchanging or resigning, when one’s companions are left behind, and in a post of danger.”

“By Jasus, and ye may say that with your own pritty mouth,” remarked another veteran, who answered to the name of Lieutenant Murphy; “for it isn’t now, while we are surrounded and bediviled by the savages, that any man of the ____ rigimint should be after talking of bating a retrate.”

“I scarcely understand you, gentlemen,” warmly and quickly retorted Sir Everard, who, with all his dandyism and effeminacy of manner, was of a high and resolute spirit. “Do either of you fancy that I want courage to face a positive danger, because I may not happen to have any particular vulgar predilection for early rising?”

“Nonsense, Valletort, nonsense,” interrupted, in accents of almost feminine sweetness, his friend Lieutenant Charles de Haldimar, the youngest son of the Governor: “Murphy is an eternal echo of the opinions of those who look forward to promotion; and as for Delme–do you not see the drift of his observation? Should you retire, as you have threatened, of course another lieutenant will be appointed in your stead; but, should you chance to lose your scalp during the struggle with the savages, the step goes in the regiment, and he, being the senior ensign, obtains promotion in consequence.”

“Ah!” observed Captain Blessington, “this is indeed the greatest curse attached to the profession of a soldier. Even among those who most esteem, and are drawn towards each other as well by fellowship in pleasure as companionship in danger, this vile and debasing principle–this insatiable desire for personal advancement–is certain to intrude itself; since we feel that over the mangled bodies of our dearest friends and companions, we can alone hope to attain preferment and distinction.”

A moment or two of silence ensued, in the course of which each individual appeared to be bringing home to his own heart the application of the remark just uttered; and which, however they might seek to disguise the truth from themselves, was too forcible to find contradiction from the secret monitor within. And yet of those assembled there was not one, perhaps, who would not, in the hour of glory and of danger, have generously interposed his own frame between that of his companion and the steel or bullet of an enemy. Such are the contradictory elements which compose a soldier’s life.

This conversation, interrupted only by occasional questioning of the sentinels whom they passed in their circuit, was carried on in an audible whisper, which the close approximation of the parties to each other, and the profound stillness of the night, enabled them to hear with distinctness.

“Nay, nay, De Haldimar,” at length observed Sir Everard, in reply to the observation of his friend, “do not imagine I intend to gratify Mr. Delme by any such exhibition as that of a scalpless head; but, if such be his hope, I trust that the hour which sees my love-locks dangling at the top of an Indian pole may also let daylight into his own carcass from a rifle bullet or a tomahawk.”

“And yit, Captin, it sames to me,” observed Lieutenant Murphy, in allusion to the remark of Blessington rather than in reply to the last speaker,–“it sames to me, I say, that promotion in ony way is all fair and honourable in times of hardship like thase; and though we may drop a tare over our suparior when the luck of war, in the shape of a tommyhawk, knocks him over, still there can be no rason why we shouldn’t stip into his shoes the viry nixt instant; and it’s that, we all know, that we fight for. And the divil a bitter chance any man of us all has of promotion thin yoursilf. Captin: for it’ll be mighty strange if our fat Major doesn’t git riddlid like a cullinder through and through with the bullits from the Ingians’ rifles before we have quite done with this business, and thin you will have the rigimintal majority, Captin; and it may be that one Liftinint Murphy, who is now the sanior of his rank, may come in for the vacant captincy.”

“And Delme for the lieutenancy,” said Charles de Haldimar significantly. “Well, Murphy, I am happy to find that you, at least, have hit on another than Sir Everard Valletort: one, in fact, who will render the promotion more general than it would otherwise have been. Seriously, I should be sorry if any thing happened to our worthy Major, who, with all his bustling and grotesque manner, is as good an officer and as brave a soldier as any his Majesty’s army in Canada can boast. For my part, I say, perish all promotion for ever, if it is only to be obtained over the dead bodies of those with whom I have lived so long and shared so many dangers!”

“Nobly uttered, Charles,” said Captain Blessington: “the sentiment is, indeed, one well worthy of our present position; and God knows we are few enough in number already, without looking forward to each other’s death as a means of our own more immediate personal advancement. With you, therefore, I repeat, perish all my hopes of promotion, if it is only to be obtained over the corses of my companions! And let those who are most sanguine in their expectations beware lest they prove the first to be cut off, and that even before they have yet enjoyed the advantages of the promotion they so eagerly covet.”

This observation, uttered without acrimony, had yet enough of delicate reproach in it to satisfy Lieutenant Murphy that the speaker was far from approving the expression of such selfish anticipations at a moment like the present, when danger, in its most mysterious guise, lurked around, and threatened the safety of all most dear to them.

The conversation now dropped, and the party pursued their course in silence. They had just passed the last sentinel posted in their line of circuit, and were within a few yards of the immediate rear of the fortress, when a sharp “Hist!” and sudden halt of their leader, Captain Blessington, threw them all into an attitude of the most profound attention.

“Did you hear?” he asked in a subdued whisper, after a few seconds of silence, in which he had vainly sought to catch a repetition of the sound.

“Assuredly,” he pursued, finding that no one answered, “I distinctly heard a human groan.”

“Where?–in what direction?” asked Sir Everard and De Haldimar in the same breath.

“Immediately opposite to us on the common.