“Mr. Lawson, let the prisoner be removed, and conducted to one of the private cells.  Who is the subaltern of the guard?”

“Ensign Fortescue,” was the answer.

“Then let Ensign Fortescue keep the key of the cell himself.  Tell him, moreover, I shall hold him individually responsible for his charge.”

Once more the prisoner was marched out of the area; and, as the clanking sound of his chains became gradually fainter in the distance, the same voice that had before interrupted the proceedings, pronounced a “God be praised!—­ God be praised!” with such melody of sorrow in its intonations that no one could listen to it unmoved.  Both officers and men were more or less affected, and all hoped—­they scarcely knew why or what—­but all hoped something favourable would occur to save the life of the brave and unhappy Frank Halloway.

Of the first interruption by the wife of the prisoner the Governor had taken no notice; but on this repetition of the expression of her feelings he briefly summoned, in the absence of the Adjutant, the sergeant-major of the regiment to his side.

“Sergeant-major Bletson, I desire that, in future, on all occasions of this kind, the women of the regiment may be kept out of the way.  Look to it, sir!”

The sergeant-major, who had stood erect as his own halbert, which he held before him in a saluting position, during this brief admonition of his colonel, acknowledged, by a certain air of deferential respect and dropping of the eyes, unaccompanied by speech of any kind, that he felt the reproof, and would, in future, take care to avoid all similar cause for complaint.  He then stalked stiffly away, and resumed, in a few hasty strides, his position in rear of the troops.

“Hard-hearted man!” pursued the same voice:  “if my prayers of gratitude to Heaven give offence, may the hour never come when my lips shall pronounce their bitterest curse upon your severity!”

There was something so painfully wild—­so solemnly prophetic—­in these sounds of sorrow as they fell faintly upon the ear, and especially under the extraordinary circumstances of the night, that they might have been taken for the warnings of some supernatural agency.  During their utterance, not even the breathing of human life was to be heard in the ranks.  In the next instant, however, Sergeant-major Bletson was seen repairing, with long and hasty strides, to the barrack whence the voice proceeded, and the interruption was heard no more.

Meanwhile the officers, who had been summoned from the ranks for the purpose of forming the court-martial, still lingered in the centre of the square, apparently waiting for the order of their superior, before they should resume their respective stations.  As the quick and comprehensive glance of Colonel de Haldimar now embraced the group, he at once became sensible of the absence of one of the seniors, all of whom he had desired should be selected for the court-martial.