“Whatever this be, we must possess ourselves of it,” said Captain Blessington:  “it is evident, from the energetic manner of him who left it, it is of importance.  I think I know who is the best swimmer and climber of our party.”

Several voices unanimously pronounced the name of “Johnstone.”

“Any thing for a dash of enterprise,” said that officer, whose slight wound had been perfectly healed.  “But what do you propose that the swimmer and climber should do, Blessington?”

“Secure yon parcel, without lowering the drawbridge.”

“What! and be scalped in the act?  Who knows if it be not a trick after all, and that the rascal who placed it there is not lying within a few feet, ready to pounce upon me the instant I reach the bank.”

“Never mind,” said Erskine, laughingly, “we will revenge your death, my boy.”

“Besides, consider the nunquam non paratus, Johnstone,” slily remarked Lieutenant Leslie.

“What, again, Leslie?” energetically responded the young Scotsman.  “Yet think not I hesitate, for I did but jest:  make fast a rope round my loins, and I think I will answer for the result.”

Colonel de Haldimar now made his appearance.  Having heard a brief statement of the facts, and approving of the suggestion of Captain Blessington, a rope was procured, and made fast under the shoulders of the young officer, who had previously stripped himself of his uniform and shoes.  He then suffered himself to drop gently over the edge of the rampart, his companions gradually lowering the rope, until a deep and gasping aspiration, such as is usually wrung from one coming suddenly in contact with cold water, announced he had gained the surface of the ditch.  The rope was then slackened, to give him the unrestrained command of his limbs; and in the next instant he was seen clambering up the opposite elevation.

Although the officers, indulging in a forced levity, in a great degree meant to encourage their companion, had treated his enterprise with indifference, they were far from being without serious anxiety for the result.  They had laughed at the idea, suggested by him, of being scalped; whereas, in truth, they entertained the apprehension far more powerfully than he did himself.  The artifices resorted to by the savages, to secure an isolated victim, were so many and so various, that suspicion could not but attach to the mysterious occurrence they had just witnessed.  Willing even as they were to believe their present visitor, whoever he was, came not in a spirit of enmity, they could not altogether divest themselves of a fear that it was only a subtle artifice to decoy one of them within the reach of their traitorous weapons.  They, therefore, watched the movements of their companion with quickening pulses; and it was with a lively satisfaction they saw him, at length, after a momentary search, descend once more into the ditch, and, with a single powerful impulsion of his limbs, urge himself back to the foot of the rampart.  Neither feet nor hands were of much service, in enabling him to scale the smooth and slanting logs that composed the exterior surface of the works; but a slight jerk of the well secured rope, serving as a signal to his friends, he was soon dragged once more to the summit of the rampart, without other injury than a couple of slight bruises.