“Let the prisoner be removed, Mr. Lawson,” ordered the governor, whose stern and somewhat dissatisfied expression of countenance was the only comment on the recommendation for mercy.

The order was promptly executed.  Once more Halloway left the square, and was reconducted to the cell he had occupied since the preceding night.

“Major Blackwater,” pursued the governor, “let a detachment consisting of one half the garrison be got in readiness to leave the fort within the hour.  Captain Wentworth, three pieces of field artillery will be required.  Let them be got ready also.”  He then retired from the area with the forbidding dignity and stately haughtiness of manner that was habitual to him; while the officers, who had just received his commands, prepared to fulfil the respective duties assigned them.

Since the first alarm of the garrison no opportunity had hitherto been afforded the officers to snatch the slightest refreshment.  Advantage was now taken of the short interval allowed by the governor, and they all repaired to the mess-room, where their breakfast had long since been provided.

“Well, Blessington,” remarked Captain Erskine, as he filled his plate for the third time from a large haunch of smoke-dried venison, for which his recent skirmish with the Indians had given him an unusual relish, “so it appears your recommendation of poor Halloway to mercy is little likely to be attended to.  Did you remark how displeased the colonel looked as he bungled through it?  One might almost be tempted to think he had an interest in the man’s death, so determined does he appear to carry his point.”

Although several of his companions, perhaps, felt and thought the same, still there was no one who would have ventured to avow his real sentiments in so unqualified a manner.  Indeed such an observation proceeding from the lips of any other officer would have excited the utmost surprise; but Captain Erskine, a brave, bold, frank, and somewhat thoughtless soldier, was one of those beings who are privileged to say any thing.  His opinions were usually expressed without ceremony; and his speech was not the most circumspect now, as since his return to the fort he had swallowed, fasting, two or three glasses of a favourite spirit, which, without intoxicating, had greatly excited him.

“I remarked enough,” said Captain Blessington, who sat leaning his head on one hand, while with the other he occasionally, and almost mechanically, raised a cup filled with a liquid of a pale blood colour to his lips,—­“quite enough to make me regret from my very soul I should have been his principal judge.  Poor Halloway, I pity him much; for, on my honour, I believe him to be the gentleman he represents himself.”

“A finer fellow does not live,” remarked the last remaining officer of the grenadiers.  “But surely Colonel de Haldimar cannot mean to carry the sentence into effect.  The recommendation of a court, couched in such terms as these, ought alone to have some weight with him.”