Colonel de Haldimar turned away, much affected; and throwing his back against the sentry box near him, passed his hand over his eyes, and remained for a few moments motionless.

“Charles, Charles, is this your promise to me?” whispered Captain Blessington, as he approached and took the hand of his unhappy friend.  “Is this the self-command you pledged yourself to exercise?  For Heaven’s sake, agitate not your father thus, by the indulgence of a grief that can have no other tendency than to render him equally wretched.  Be advised by me, and quit the rampart.  Return to your guard, and endeavour to compose yourself.”

“Ha! what new movement is that on the part of the savages?” exclaimed Captain Erskine, who had kept his glass to his eye mechanically, and chiefly with a view of hiding the emotion produced in him by the almost infantine despair of the younger De Haldimar:  “surely it is—­yet, no, it cannot be—­yes, see how they are dragging several prisoners from the wood to the beach.  I can distinctly see a man in a blanket coat, and two others considerably taller, and apparently sailors.  But look, behind them are two females in European dress.  Almighty Heaven! there can be no doubt.”

A painful pause ensued.  Every other glass and eye was levelled in the same direction; and, even as Erskine had described it, a party of Indians were seen, by those who had the telescopes, conducting five prisoners towards a canoe that lay in the channel communicating from the island with the main land on the Detroit shore.  Into the bottom of these they were presently huddled, so that only their heads and shoulders were visible above the gunwale of the frail bark.  Presently a tall warrior was seen bounding from the wood towards the beach.  The crowd of gesticulating Indians made way, and the warrior was seen to stoop and apply his shoulder to the canoe, one half of which was high and dry upon the sands.  The heavily laden vessel obeyed the impetus with a rapidity that proved the muscular power of him who gave it.  Like some wild animal, instinct with life, it lashed the foaming waters from its bows, and left a deep and gurgling furrow where it passed.  As it quitted the shore, the warrior sprang lightly in, taking his station at the stern; and while his tall and remarkable figure bent nimbly to the movement, he dashed his paddle from right to left alternately in the stream, with a quickness that rendered it almost invisible to the eye.  Presently the canoe disappeared round an intervening headland, and the officers lost sight of it altogether.

“The portrait, Charles; what have you done with the portrait?” exclaimed Captain Blessington, actuated by a sudden recollection, and with a trepidation in his voice and manner that spoke volumes of despair to the younger De Haldimar.  “This is our only hope of solving the mystery.  Quick, give me the portrait, if you have it.”