“With your honour’s permission,” said the serjeant, “I would ask corporal Allen if the deserters have gone off with their arms and accoutrements?”

“Airms?  Ay, and legs, and a’ belonging to ’em, with mair that is the lawfu’ property of the laird.  Not so much as a flint is left behind.”

“Then we may count on seeing all the fellows in the enemy’s ranks,” the serjeant quietly remarked, helping himself to the tobacco from which he had refrained throughout the previous hours of the night, Joyce being too much of a martinet to smoke or chew on duty.  “It’s up-hill work, your honour, when every deserter counts two, in this manner.  The civil wars, however, are remarkable for this sort of wheeling, and facing to the right-about; the same man often changing his colours two or three times in a campaign.”

Captain Willoughby received the news of this addition to his ill luck with an air of military stoicism, though he felt, in reality, more like a father and a husband on the occasion than like a hero.  Accustomed to self-command, he succeeded in concealing the extent of his uneasiness, while he immediately set about inquiring into the extent of the evil.

“Joel is to join my watch,” he said, “and he may throw some light on this affair.  Let us call him, at once, for a few minutes may prove of importance.”

Even while speaking, the captain crossed the court, accompanied by the serjeant and mason; and, ceremony being little attended to on such occasions, they all entered the quarters of Strides, in a body.  The place was empty!  Man, woman, and children had abandoned the spot, seemingly in a body; and this, too, far from empty-handed.  The manner in which the room had been stripped, indeed, was the first fact which induced the captain to believe that a man so much and so long trusted would desert him in a strait so serious.  There could be no mistake; and, for a moment, the husband and father felt such a sinking of the heart as would be apt to follow the sudden conviction that his enemies must prevail.

“Let us look further, Joyce,” he said, “and ascertain the extent of the evil at once.”

“This is a very bad example, your honour, that corporal Strides has set the men, and we may expect to hear of more desertions.  A non-commissioned officer should have had too much pride for this!  I have always remarked, sir, in the army, that when a non-commissioned officer left his colours, he was pretty certain to carry off a platoon with him.”

The search justified this opinion of the serjeant.  A complete examination of the quarters of all the men having been made, it was ascertained that every white man in the Hut, the serjeant, Jamie Allen, and a young New England labourer of the name of Blodget excepted, had abandoned the place.  Every man had carried off with him his arms and ammunition, leaving the rooms as naked of defence as they had been before they were occupied.  Women and children, too, were all gone, proving that the flights had been made deliberately, and with concert.  This left the Hut to be defended by its owner, the serjeant, the two Plinys and a young descendant of the same colour, Jamie Allen, Blodget and Mike, who had not yet been relieved from his ward over the Indian; eight men in all, who might possibly receive some assistance from the four black females in the kitchen.